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THE 

CONVENTIONALISTS 


BY 

ROBERT HUGH BENSON 

AUTHOR OF “ THE king’s ACHIEVEMENT,” “ THE QUEEN’S TRAGEDY,’ 
“ RICHARD RAYNAL; SOLITARY,” ETC. 







ST. LOUIS, MO.. 1908 
Published by B. Herder 
17 South Broadway 




LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Received 

DEC 21 1908 

CopyriK'nt Entry 
CLASS OL XXc, No. 

3) I ^ 

COPY d. 


Copyright, 1908, by Joseph Gummersbach 



— BECKtOLD — 

PRINTING AND BOOK MFG. CO. 
ST. LOUIS, MO. 


o 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Prologue i 

Part I 12 

Part II 118 

Part III 242 

Epilogue 357 


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THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


PROLOGUE 

T SET down my bag in a kind of despair, straight- 
ened my aching back and began very cautiously 
to bend my cramped fingers this way and that; the 
pinched skin across the palm of my hand slowly re- 
adjusted itself. Yet all the while I was marvelling 
at the dawn of rosy nacre, the strange silence, the 
clean-smelling, cold, dark air and the solemnity of 
the empty streets. 

I was doing an extremely foolish thing out of 
mere obstinacy. Two engagements, just not incom- 
patible, involved my arriving, from the north, at 
Euston at four o'clock in the morning and my leav- 
ing Waterloo at eight o'clock; and in a fit of roman- 
tic self-will I had shaken my head at the sleepy 
cab-drivers and set out to walk with my kit-bag 
across from one station to the other. For about 
three-quarters of an hour I had enjoyed myself ; then 
profound irritation, weariness and self-mockery had 
gained possession of my animal nature, and the con- 
flict was now proceeding. On the one side, such 
appreciative faculties as I possess pointed out to me 
I 


2 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


the curious romance of the quiet streets, the unique 
experience of looking upon London asleep; on the 
other, my carnal appetite painted visions of a cush- 
ioned hansom, a hotel bedroom and a couple of 
hours' drowsy rest. But my will was obstinate. 
No power known to me would have availed to make 
me falter. 

I had reached a cross-road, somewhere to the 
south of King’s Cross, where the slope begins to 
rise, and for the third or fourth time set down my 
bag to rest. As my muscles slowly relaxed, and the 
quick pricking of the skin subsided to a glow, I 
began once more to appreciate my experience. It 
was really very remarkable. To right and left of 
me ran a long, straight street, noisy and hideous in 
the daytime no doubt, now as solemn as a ruined 
temple in the dawn. A water-cart had lately passed 
along this way, sweeping clean with floods of fresh 
water the fragments and the dust generated in the 
previous day, and a smell as of a country road was in 
my nostrils. Opposite me, and down the street in 
front, rose up the silhouette of chimney pots and 
stucco parapets, beneath which drowsed the white- 
blinded windows; here and there a vivid orange 
oblong, crossed by a monstrous shadow, showed 
where some yawning human creature was making 
ready for his day’s work. The silence, too, was 
impressive ; and the gnat-like cry of some workman’s 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


3 


train half a mile away, the rich, sudden clatter of a 
milk-cart across the end of one of these labyrinthine 
avenues, the hollow bang of a house-door, the ap- 
proaching and receding rap of footsteps on the hard 
pavement, echoing back clear and distinct before fad- 
ing’ again into stillness, the thin crow of a dawn-cock 
across miles of roofs — all these things did no more 
than accentuate the silence. 

Since leaving the Euston Road, I had not seen 
more than a dozen persons all told, and of these not 
less than four had been policemen. Five more had 
been working men, bag on shoulder, passing briskly 
along to some mysterious business, scenting the air 
for a hundred yards behind them with the pungent 
black tobacco and that strange British combination 
of stale alcohol and unwashed clothes. One had 
been a drowsy boy, protruding a stick-like arm to 
take in the milk at a green-painted, blistered door; 
one had been a girl with her hair in curl-papers, 
who appeared to have slept in her clothes; and the 
last, a railway porter driving a van. I had also had 
a few courteous words with a sleepy but polite col- 
lie-dog. 

I had learned two or three lessons already and 
now repeated them to myself. The first was that 
those persons who report that London never sleeps 
are liars; the second, that the sense of smell is ex- 
traordinarily refined at four o’clock in the morning, 


4 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


and the third was that hideous London streets can 
be perfectly beautiful in an autumn dawn. 

I do not think I have ever seen that sky equalled. 
Overhead still lay the heavy gray pall of thin cloud, 
visible through the smoke-clear air ; but to the south- 
east it flushed through old-rose down to a burning 
red and gold and with faint blue streaks of cloud 
variegating it like the colors of mother-of-pearl. 
It was as if some unimaginable glory was a-prepar- 
ing in heaven. Yet I knew perfectly well that I 
should be disappointed later. The promise would 
not be fulfilled; the colours would die, not deepen, 
and a drab-colored day would once more reassert it- 
self over this splendid dawn, as surely as disillu- 
sionment succeeds to youthful love. 

I suppose that persons who walk abroad occa- 
sionally at this unheard-of hour are generally in- 
clined at such times to a priggish sententiousness. 
I had already been swelling with pride and superi- 
ority for half an hour ; now I even went so far as to 
begin to reflect upon human life. Here was this 
great morning-secret into which I had been initi- 
ated — the secret that London sleeps and that yet 
the world continues! How childish, I told myself, 
that people should ever be bewildered with human 
life, or be tempted to think that man’s perceptions 
were adequate to absolute truth! Here was in- 
finite air about me, alive with some silent smiling 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


5 


Presence; undreamed of space on every side flowed 
down again into those stone and stucco channels 
from which for an hour or two festering human- 
ity had been withdrawn, as surely as the clean sea- 
water washes up the horrible drain-pipes that run 
into the sand from the insignificant little village 
on the cliff. How strange it was that these rabbit- 
men and women who ran up and down those streets 
and who retired to snore in stuffy bedrooms when 
dark had fallen, should so live in the midst of mys- 
tery and yet not understand it. While I — I — a 
lover of the country, saw at a glance. . . . 

I perceived my own revolting sententiousness, 
and stooped once more to take up my bag. Even 
as I did so a step sounded sharply up from my left, 
and round the corner of the house, up the road 
which I was about to cross, came the figure of a 
young man. He looked at me for an instant as he 
passed, at my face under my clerical hat, my long 
overcoat, my bag and back again to my face. Then 
he was gone, and his steps rang along the pave- 
ment at my right. 

But I was interested in what I had seen. He is 
my hero. Let me describe him carefully, once and 
for all. 

First, he was plainly a gentleman, though in a re- 
markable costume. He was in a long, white frieze 
motoring overcoat ; his boots were of a proper chest- 


6 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


nut color; he had his hands deep in his pockets; 
he wore a Trilby hat, and a '' ThiM Trinity wool- 
len scarf was wrapped about his neck. He was 
slightly under six feet in height. What I had seen 
of his face was reassuring; he was no nocturnal 
reveler. His eyes were a clear, kind of gray-blue, 
looking with a slightly puzzled expression out of a 
strangely clear complexion ; his thin lips were fresh, 
and set in a determined line; and there had been in 
his face, as he had glanced at me, a kind of shy 
and courteous interest — neither the mask-like look 
of the carnal and conventional animal, nor the stu- 
pid intelligence of the fool. Later, I noticed one 
or two other things — that his jaw was very beau- 
tifully shaped and gave promise of extreme firmness ; 
its lower line was almost exactly at right angles to 
his throat; that his nose was really straight, with 
sensitive, fine nostrils, and that his chin had just 
the shadow of a cleft in th^ middle. 

I took up my bag, went a step or two forward 
and hesitated, looking after his retreating figure. 
Then I determined to go after him, with a vague 
kind of curiosity as to what he was doing abroad 
at that hour. 

Now, I had no sort of intention of speaking to 
him ; indeed, there was no hope of my catching him 
up, but I thought it would add a kind of interest 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


7 


to my pilgrimage, if I followed him so long as he 
went in the least in my direction. I could weave 
imaginations about him, too, which would serve 
to pass the time. But at the next street corner he 
was delivered into my hands. 

There stood at the angle a coffee-stall, just off the 
pavement; and a navvy had just set down his cup 
on the counter and was turning away. My young 
man, scarcely forty yards in front of me, hesitated 
an instant; then he dived briskly under the canvas 
roof, and I heard his voice requesting coffee. I, 
too, then followed him, set down my bag and de- 
livered the same order. 

It was a curious little place. Two men looked 
over the high counter raised on a platform. Be- 
hind them were shelves filled with tin boxes and 
crockery. A couple of steaming pots stood between 
us with a regiment of thick-lipped cups, and three or 
four loaves of bread with a basin of butter stood 
beside them. A kerosene-jet flared noisily just out- 
side the shelter. 

The young man and I, standing a yard apart, as 
monks eat their jentaculum, ate in silence. The 
coffee was really delicious, hot and thick. I was 
still meditating whether I could introduce myself by 
offering a cigarette, when an old man stepped round 
the corner of the shelter and suggested carrying 


8 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


my bag for me. I told him, No, looking at his bent 
old body and pinched face; but that he might have 
some coffee at my charges. 

While he ate and drank, my mind still labored on 
the question as to how I could speak to the young 
man. I really do not know why I wanted to; I 
suppose it must have been an unworthy curiosity 
as to his doings; but finally it came about in a mo- 
ment. As I fumbled for the coppers I dropped two, 
and, after a pause of looking, the young man 
stooped and picked one up. 

I thanked him and after finishing my payment, 
offered first the old man and then the young one 
my cigarette case. Each took a cigarette; and, as 
together we three went out, I turned to the young 
man suddenly. 

Are you going my way ? ” 1 asked, indicating 
the street to the left. 

He smiled rather pleasantly and bowed with a 
kind of youthful dignity, and together we set off. 

I began by remarking on his scarfi 

‘‘ You are wearing what I should call ‘ Third 
Trinity ' colors,” I said. 

‘‘ Why, that’s what they are ! ” he said. 

“ That’s interesting,” I went on. “ I’m Eton and 
Trinity myself.” 

That started him more or less, and I learned 
presently, though he was obviously a shy boy, that 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


9 


he had just begun his third year; that he was go- 
ing to the Bar (I knew what that meant) ; that up 
to to-day he had been staying with his uncle in 
town ; that he was going down to his home, Crows- 
ton, in Sussex, that evening. All this came out 
gradually; he was not more than politely communi- 
cative; and I had to help him out by telling him 
various facts about myself. He seemed interested 
to learn that I too was living in Cambridge; and 
presently he asked me if I were a don. 

I told him, No; and then I unmasked my first 
gun. 

‘‘ I am a Roman Catholic priest,” I said. “ I am 
at the Catholic Rectory there.” 

There was just that pause that I have become 
accustomed to expect on making that announcement, 
and then he said something, shy and polite, about 
our meeting up at Cambridge perhaps. 

I shall be delighted,” I said. “ I never hunt 
people out for fear they should think I am prosely- 
tizing. But I am generally at home in the evening, 
if you care to look me up.” 

I suppose the sense of mutual loneliness, engen- 
dered by walking together through empty streets, 
encourages communicativeness ; and by the time that 
we reached the beginning of the City, he had told 
me a good deal more, broken occasionally by that 


10 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


kind of tremulous pause that I have noticed in con- 
versations with other people who have learned that 
I am a priest. 

Briefly, he was the second son of a country gen- 
tleman; ... he had one brother older than 
himself, and another younger; ... his par- 
ents were both alive. He rowed in the second boat 
of Third Trinity ” ; . . . he was reading for 

the Law Tripos and hoped to get through. . . . 

He thought he liked Cambridge . . . He was 

accustomed to ride and shoot, but he wasn’t much 
good at either. 

As we turned off by the Mansion House, the City 
was awake in earnest; the romance was gone, and 
the drab day had taken complete possession of all 
things. Yet I had not so far found out what I 
wanted. He said something about leaving me at 
the entrance of the bridge, and I fired my last shot. 

Do tell me what on earth you are doing out at 
this hour?” 

He smiled rather shyly, and flushed very faintly. 

I am just taking a walk,” he said. ‘‘ I was out 
at three and shall get back to Queen’s Gate for 
breakfast.” 

“ It is admirable. Do you often do it ? ” 

“ Sometimes,” he said. '' I like it.” 


At the beginning of the bridge he said good-bye. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


II 


‘‘ Don’t forget,” I said. “ I shan’t come and see 
you unless you come to see me first. My name is 
Benson; and I live at the Catholic Rectory.” 

“ I shan’t forget,” he said. 

All across the bridge I was revolving theories. A 
young man walks abroad from three to eight for 
one of two reasons. Either he is ill with sleepless- 
ness, and this one was not, or he is suffering from 
acute romance; and in this case he is in love, of a 
sort, either with an idea, or with a girl, or with God. 

That, then, was my first meeting with Algy Ban- 
ister. 


PART I 


CHAPTER I 
(I) 

TVyriSS MARY MAPLE was looking out of her 
^ ^ bedroom window at Crowston shortly before 
half-past nine in the morning and wondering what 
she should talk about at breakfast. It was not an 
encouraging morning, for it had absolutely no dis- 
tinctive character whatever. The sky was gray 
and dull; the grass was of a usual green; and the 
woods to right and left were hesitating as to whether 
it was still late summer or whether they should 
vote for early autumn, and dress accordingly; in 
fact, a few impulsive spirits had already decided 
that it was absurd to remain quite green any 
longer. She thought she would say this, as she 
fingered the curtains a moment; then she reflected 
that it was really too elaborate for breakfast; it 
might possibly serve at a genial tea. In any case 
she was not sure that the Banister circle would in 
the least understand what she was talking about. 

She too stood rather in the position of the woods. 

12 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


13 


Hitherto she had been certainly summer, a pleasant, 
flushed-faced summer, with brown-gold hair; but 
she was beginning to hesitate — her age was twenty- 
nine. It seemed to her sometimes as if she was 
being hardly treated by the Authorities. Certainly 
she looked her part all right, in a brown tailor- 
made dress, upright, steady-faced, sufficiently pretty 
and certainly dignified. She could act it, too, and 
loved it. She rode magnificently, shot on occasion 
just well enough to make men pleased with her, 
was competent at golf, could drive a motor and 
was quite good at parlor tricks and amateur theat- 
ricals; but the difficulty was that she did not really 
know her spoken part. She was subject to moods 
which she could not control. Occasionally she felt 
so desperately bored that she sat almost dead-silent ; 
occasionally she talked just too cleverly for her 
friends. She positively read poetry now and then 
and knew a few arguments of the other side. It 
was very hard to hit the mean. 

Yet here she was planted by destiny in a succes- 
sion of country houses from July to March and in 
town from March to July, and time was passing. 
She had acknowledged to herself quite frankly by 
now that she wanted to be married ; in fact, she had 
known this for at least five years ; and she knew 
also that nothing but a really comfortable kind of 
life would suit her. There must be no nonsense 


14 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


about younger sons. . . . Theo Banister would 

have done very well. Her will, instructed by her 
understanding, had singled him out a year ago, and 
her affections had followed obediently though tran- 
quilly; but it seemed there was no reciprocation. 
Theo was a perfectly harmless, proper kind of man. 
She had met him a dozen times in town ; it was un- 
doubtedly through his means that she had been 
asked here a second year in succession ; and now this 
fool Algy had spoilt it all. It was impossible to 
preserve dignity with an uncouth schoolboy making 
eyes at her all day. 

This was what she said to herself in her severer 
moods, on such occasions as before breakfast or im- 
mediately after lunch; but there were other times 
when she felt rather sorry for him. He was plainly 
an excellent boy ; he was shy, rather incompetent — 
obviously considered the fool of the family — and 
entirely devoted. Even her irritation with him 
showed her interest, though she did not perceive 
this. If he had but been the eldest son he might 
really have done very well. He was a fresh, cour- 
teous boy; he would always be presentable, though 
not always graceful. . . . And he was coming 

back from town this evening. 

An old retriever plodded stiffly across the gravel, 
took up a position on the grass immediately in front 
of the front door, sat down, closed his eyes rever- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


15 


ently and began to emit solemn barks, listening, 
as it were, to the echo of each through eternity. It 
seemed very significant and ceremonial. Mary 
smiled at him, left off twitching the curtain and 
went to the door. 

The retriever did very well as an opening for con- 
versation five minutes later as she sat between Theo 
and Harold ; and she had learned presently, with an 
air of intelligent interest, his age, name and the 
principal incidents of his career, all from Harold’s 
eager lips. Algy had shot him once, it seemed, not 
seriously, in the hind quarters, thinking him to be a 
hare in the undergrowth. 

‘‘ Jolly funny sort of hare,” said the boy vindic- 
tively ; and then, without indicating a change of sub- 
ject, “ He’s coming down again to-day. Miss Maple. 
Don’t tell him I told you. He’s only been up 
about some law business.” 

‘‘ The Brasteds are coming by the same train,” 
put in Theo, reaching across for the toast, ‘‘ and 
Jack Hamilton. You know them well, don’t you? ” 

Mary assented. 

“ She’s a Catholic, isn’t she ? ” asked Harold, with 
large eyes. 

Again Mary assented. 

She became one about five years ago,” she said. 

As she went across to get some cold partridge. 


i6 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


the sense of despair came on her again. It was all 
so hopelessly the same. Here was this large and 
comfortable dining-room, Turkey carpeted and hung 
with portraits of solid Victorian and Georgian Ban- 
isters. There was a black marble mantelpiece; sil- 
ver dishes on the sideboard loaded with excellently 
cooked food ; an immense hot-water urn blotting out 
her hostess’s face. All the people, too, were ex- 
actly like everybody else. Old Mr. Banister 
seemed what he was, a Justice of the Peace, an ad- 
mirable sportsman, a competent head of a household 
and estates. At first sight he looked as if he were 
in a perpetual passion. Mrs. Banister seconded 
him perfectly, performed her functions well and 
had about three other ideas in the world. Theo 
was a good third, who would make a first some day ; 
and Harold was also what he looked, a boy of nine- 
teen, fresh-faced, ardent and confidential. There 
was also another man and his wife of no importance, 
who were leaving that morning, and Sybil Mark- 
ham, a sort of cousin of the house, a really charm- 
ing girl of eighteen, looking exactly like a Gains- 
borough, with whom Harold was obviously in 
love. Then this evening there would be the Bras- 
teds — a faint consolation — Jack Hamilton and 
Algy. 

Yet Mary knew perfectly well that she could not 
be happy unless the wheels ran smoothly. Life was 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


17 


tolerable in the midst of pleasant opulence — or, at 
any rate, it would be intolerable elsewhere. She 
could not imagine without horror an existence in 
which food was not perfectly cooked, or where other 
people^s windows looked on to her own garden. 
She had had experience of it for the first fifteen 
years of her life, till her aunt had adopted her; she 
did not wish to have it again. Yet undoubtedly 
she would some day, when her aunt died, unless she 
succeeded in establishing a right of her own. Theo 
seemed her last chance — and Theo, in brightly col- 
ored heather-stockings, was helping himself to 
ham. 

She went out after breakfast to see the sports- 
men off, an hour later. The unimportant man and 
his wife had spun off on the motor ten minutes be- 
fore, the beaters were assembling on the gravel at 
the corner, and Mr. Banister was conferring with 
the keeper. 

Harold came out in his homespun and gaiters 
and stood beside her. 

We’re going over there first — just through 
the roots,” he said, pointing out to the left. ‘‘ Are 
you coming out to lunch ? ” 

I believe so,” said Mary sedately, knowing per- 
fectly well why he had asked. At any rate, Sybil 

and I are coming.” 

2 


i8 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


Harold snicked open his gun punctiliously, and 
looked down the barrels with a critical eye. 

“ I wish those other chaps would come in time,’’ 
he said, They’re ten minutes late already.” 

Theo came out almost immediately afterwards, a 
similar figure, with a large flat cap set above his 
ruddy face, and made the same remark; and Mary 
stood by him, leaning against the Corinthian pillar 
of the porch, presenting really a charming picture 
there. Out here in the dull light she did not look 
her age; her heavy masses of brown hair shone 
pleasantly with underlights of gold; her face had 
a warm morning flush, and her eyes seemed bright 
and interested. Her brown-clad figure showed 
to great advantage against the round white col- 
umn. 

I wish I was a man sometimes,” she said sud- 
denly. How nice, it must be to be dressed like 
that!” 

This was well on Theo’s intellectual level ; and he 
made an obvious answer. It was like touching a 
spring. 

At any rate. I’m coming out to lunch,” she 
said; “^and I shall borrow somebody’s gun for a 
shot or two afterwards.” 

She still stood watching as the group moved away 
at last across the grass, with the two late comers 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


19 


still slightly apologetic. It was all so pleasantly 
picturesque; the long slope of grass crowned by 
pines against the sky a quarter of a mile away; the 
russet colored figures moving across; the band of 
beaters vanishing with their white flags far off to 
the left to take their places for the drive — all so 
picturesque and so suggestive. And it all so nearly 
belonged to her, and just did not. 

Sybil came over just before they disappeared. 

'' Oh ! I’m late,” she said. I didn’t know : ” 

Then the two stood watching. 

(n) 

After the train left East Croydon for the com- 
parative darkness of unsuburban country, Algy laid 
aside the Westminster,” crossed his right leg over 
his left, propped his cheek on his hand and his hand 
against the glass and settled himself down to lux- 
urious meditation. 

He was very much in love, and was delighted that 
he was alone in this first-class carriage ; for it 
seemed to him almost impossible that his secret 
should not escape from him in a kind of luminous 
emanation. This past week had been intolerable to 
him. His Love had come to stay for a fortnight 
in his own home; he had^^seen her for two days; 
then he had been obliged to go up to town to his 
uncle’s house about some business connected with 


20 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


his future entrance into Law; and now there re- 
mained six days, Sunday to Friday inclusive, in 
which he would see her and live in her company. 

It had begun in the previous summer at a ball. 
He had seen her before that, but she had not risen 
upon him, so to speak, before that fateful night. 
He had positively danced with her, he had been 
conscious of various details which he had meditated 
upon ever since — the warm color of her complex- 
ion, the gold lights in her hair, the shape of her 
hand and the extraordinary thrill of her eyes. She 
had been delightful to him; she had even said that 
she enjoyed talking to somebody who understood 
what she meant. He had taken her to supper and 
to her carriage in the early dawn. He had gone 
home, not yet fully understanding what had hap- 
pened to him; he had laid the gloves in which he 
had danced at the very back of his drawer, that they 
might not be worn again. He had fallen asleep to 
the phantom music of a band ; he had awakened the 
next morning, conscious instantly of her existence. 

It was this form, then, that love took in Algy — 
a form of idealism that had very little to do with 
facts. He had passed through Eton singularly un- 
scathed, and he still retained the capacity for clear 
adoration that often disappears with childhood. 
Nothing entered his head but this idealism. Mary 
was to him an almost wholly spiritual figure — an 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


21 


intangible light radiating through a beautiful lan- 
tern. (I regret having to expres^ it in this rather 
bombastic language, but I am unaware of any other. 
Perhaps it would be simpler at once to say that 
Algy’s chief characteristic was an extreme purity.) 

Other new things had followed that beginning, 
exactly as they always do. The world was the 
same, yet he, in company with all other youthful 
lovers, had looked upon it now from a new angle, 
and it reflected marvelous shades and tints of light. 
Things that had appeared dull, which he had taken 
for granted, took upon themselves a new kind of 
reality. It was as when one places an uninteresting 
photograph in a diorama; details and principles be- 
come rounded and objective — they fall into fresh 
and vivid relations one with another. He began to 
understand now why it was right and proper that 
summer woods should be beautiful and sunsets 
should glow with entrancing color; why the dead 
stillness of a country night under a sky full of stars 
should have a voice; what it is that sets two dogs 
racing and biting on dewy grass. For the first 
time in his life he had begun to understand that the 
painting of pictures and the composing of music 
and the writing of poetry were not mere methods of 
passing the time or making money, but that there 
was an impulse beneath them that must materialize 
or die. Most significant of all, perhaps, and cer- 


22 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


tainly rather unusual in such cases, was the fact that 
he had begun to say his prayers again and found 
in that practice a strange and bewildering joy. For, 
after all, the material world was not a series of col- 
ored objects, nor the moral a series of human ac- 
tions, nor time a progression, nor space an exten- 
sion; but all was one spirit expressing itself under 
these things, itself transcendent of them and it cul- 
minated, obviously, in a vast Parental Heart, from 
which all took its origin and in Whose embrace all 
lay poised. 

It seemed to Algy very remarkable that he had 
not been aware of all this before — even though he 
did not so formulate his emotions. His life, up to 
that June night, appeared totally bloodless and un- 
interesting; yet she had been in the world all that 
time (and, in fact, exactly eight years previously 
too). But all had been but as a drop-scene to a 
child — sufficiently interesting and yet not adequate 
to his desires. The painted castle and the sunset 
and the bulrushes — well, they were pretty toler- 
able, and when the lights were turned up, even 
charming; but the hour had struck, and the canvas 
had rolled up, showing by that action its own in- 
substantiality, and fairyland lay revealed in three 
dimensions instead of two — far more real even 
than common life because so far beyond ideals — 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


23 


and in the very center of the stage a radiant 
Queen. 

Here, then, sat poor Algy in a first-class carriage 
on the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. 

He first drew a number of mental pictures of the 
hall at home, where she would probably be sitting 
before the open fireplace as he came in five minutes 
before the dressing-bell rang. She might be in a 
tea-gown or she might not; but, at any rate, her 
hands and hair and face would be a fixed quantity. 
He would stand and warm his back, he thought, for 
a little while and talk to her, looking down on her 
upturned face. The dressing-bell would ring; but 
he would not go upstairs at once ; he would wait till 
twenty minutes to the hour. And so would she. 

Then there would be dinner; he would probably 
be able to sit next her and would tell her about his. 
week in town and hear the news of Crowston. He 
would drink enough wine to get over his shyness, of 
which he was perfectly aware and which he loathed 
and despised. When they met again in the draw- 
ing-room, he would not go to her at once ; it would 
be good to deny himself a little — not much, for, 
after all, he would be in the same room with her. 
Then he must give her her candle, himself. There 
must be no mistake about that. 


24 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


To-morrow morning? Yes; he would certainly 
go to the early celebration; he had begun that again. 
It was even conceivable, though perhaps not prob- 
able, that she would come too. How extraordina- 
rily sweet it would be if she did ! They would walk 
across the park in the dewy light, hearing the hush 
of Sunday; enter the little dark Norman church; 
kneel within a yard or two of one another, for 
surely no other member of the household would be 
there. Together they would pass up towards the 
warm light of the sanctuary. . . . And if she 

were not there, at least he would go; he could not 
have too much of love. . . . 

Algy did not get much beyond the immediate fu- 
ture. Of course he foresaw himself occasionally in 
his own house with her, and a child or two, all mov- 
ing in golden light; but the steps necessary to this 
consummation — ways and means and income — 
he did not consider. Practically, too, he did not 
ask himself whether she loved him. She was kind 
to him; and that was all that was necessary just 
now. It was really impossible to him to doubt but 
that some day she would love him. His own emo- 
tion was so positive that the answer must certainly 
be there. So too must alLthe other necessary ele- 
ments be there — a pleasant house in the country, a 
carriage or two, a large shady garden and nothing 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


25 


particular to do. These things were as surely de- 
manded as food and sleep, and therefore must be 
forthcoming. Otherwise, where is the argument 
from human instinct? 

So there he sat and contemplated, idealizing with 
all his might. 

He was feeling a little drowsy, for, after all, he 
had walked for nearly five hours at the beginning of 
the day, driven from his bed into the dark streets 
by the insistent goad of romance — and he was 
slightly bewildered as he stepped out on to the plat- 
form of Crowston. It was very dark, a fine rain 
was falling, his luggage was in an unexpected van ; 
and it was not till he positively ran into Lord Bras- 
ted at the entrance of the station that he remembered 
that guests were coming down by the same train. 

His first emotion was one of disappointment. It 
would complicate matters to have these people 
crowding about the house. There might even be a 
dinner party, which would be fatal to his schemes. 

But he behaved well and stood about in courteous 
attention upon Lady Brasted, letting the other two 
men do all the running about, and sincerely apolo- 
getic as soon as the last piece of luggage had been 
wheeled out in charge of the man and maid. Then 
he climbed last into the motor and sat down on the 


26 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


end of the seat nearest the door, fitting his knees 
in between those of Jack Hamilton, who sat oppo- 
site. 

There was not much talking done on the way to 
the house. Algy had no conversational powers and 
was, besides, too full of expectation to exert him- 
self. So the four sat in the darkness and were 
whirled sideways in that slightly ignominious fash- 
ion that seems inseparable for a wagonette; once 
they all rose solemnly together as if to adjourn a 
meeting, and sat suddenly down again as the car 
rushed over a ridge in the country road. Through 
the glass window on his right Algy could see the flat 
cap of the chauffeur and the high collar of his coat 
against the white glare of the acetylene and, within, 
the pale profile of Lady Brasted under her hat. Jack 
made a remark or two of no importance, and Lord 
Brasted volunteered a conjecture as to the horse- 
power of the motor. Algy was able neither to con- 
firm nor deny his statement. 

So the lodge gate was passed and the deep dip 
among the rhododendrons and the pond where a 
pale swan lay poised as above an unfathomable gulf 
of darkness; then came the rush out from the trees 
and the sight of a couple of rabbits sitting up scared 
in the white light across the grass ; then trees again 
and the first view of the lighted house beneath them 
in the valley, and at that sight Algy’s anticipation 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


27 


rose keener yet, and he pressed his knees together 
tightly with his hands between them. 

Getting out was a somewhat clumsy affair. Algy 
still had a good many corners left on him; he trod 
once upon Jack Hamilton’s toes and slipped upon 
the step, and, when he was finally out, stood alone 
rather helplessly while the rest descended into the 
pleasant light from the open hall door. Then he 
followed them, with a strange tightening at his 
throat ; but the hall was empty. 

He hung about while the rest went through into 
the inner hall, dawdling over his coat, and hesitat- 
ing whether or not to ask where the others were. 

Mr. Theo anywhere about ? ” he said at last dip- 
lomatically as the man hung up his hat. 

Mr. Theo’s in the billiard-room, I think, sir.” 

He still hesitated, standing on the rug and spread- 
ing his hands mechanically to the blaze. Then he 
stepped briskly away, passed through the swing 
door and went down the passage towards the bil- 
liard-room. 

There was a click and a whir and a loud excla- 
mation as he opened the door. 

Fourteen, three,” said Mary’s voice. 

But there was no kind of sensation as he made 
his appearance. Mary was that moment addressing 
herself to a stroke and made no movement beyond a 
slight raising and dropping of her eyes. Theo was 


28 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


standing on the hearthrug chalking his cue viciously 
and nodded very curtly to his brother. A pair of 
knees and the back of a volume of '' Punch ” de- 
noted that Harold was lying on his back on the 
leather seat by the fire. Then Mary played, can- 
noned, and, still without a look, passed around the 
table, looking earnestly at the balls. She played 
again, missed her stroke, and came towards him. 

So you are back?’’ she said. “ . . . No, 

I missed that.” 

A face looked over the “ Punch.” 

'Ms Jack come? ” 

“Yes; and the Brasteds,” said Algy, taking up 
his position on the middle of the hearth-rug with an 
odd kind of disappointment at his heart. This was 
not at all in accordance with his rehearsal. 

“ Out of the light, Algy,” said Theo genially. 
“ Miss Maple wants to mark.” 

It was a very depressing few minutes that fol- 
lowed. Harold was gone; and Theo and Mary 
seemed all-sufficient to themselves, entirely en- 
grossed in their game and paying no more atten- 
tion to Algy than occasionally to ask him to mark 
this or that. The dressing-bell rang, but he des- 
perately hung on, watching now his brother in his 
Norfolk jacket and dress trousers, now making a 
dreary remark or two and studiously keeping his 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


29 


eyes off the girl in the tea-gown except when he was 
quite certain that nobody was looking at him. Once 
Theo asked him whether he had settled everything 
all right in town, and once, by extreme dexterity, he 
was able to supply Mary with the chalk; but this 
was his sole reward. It was almost impossible to 
pretend that he was wanted. 

“ I advise you to look sharp, old chap,’’ said Theo 
at last ; it’s after ten too.” 

“Yes; Fd better go and dress,” said Algy 
drearily. 

(hi) 

Harold was a successful individualist. He pur- 
sued his own way, had personal relations with keep- 
ers and men-servants, saw that his errands were 
done, made love to Sybil, retired from the company, 
got the warm corners within and without doors 
which he wanted — he did all this and yet he was 
not unsociable. He had a way with him when he 
joined himself to his fellows that compensated for 
his previous self-sufficiency. He was so pleasant 
that his profound egotism did not matter. 

Theo was his precise complement. He, on the 
other hand, had no intelligent existence apart from 
other people. He was stupendously bored when he 
was alone; he read no books, had no private affairs 
and lived only in company. It was not a brilliant 


30 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


life, though it was sufficiently harmless. It com- 
prised dressing suitably, understanding about horses 
and guns, behaving respectably, assenting passively 
to the beliefs and motives of his own people. He 
knew the proper moment to offer whisky, the best 
tailors and bootmakers, the names of distinguished 
actresses and the pedigree of sporting dogs. He 
never speculated on what did not concern him; he 
thought poetry to be nonsense, though he managed 
. not to say so very often ; he was bored by the super- 
natural, yet considered the establishment a necessary 
department of human life. He told coarse stories 
to the proper people; three years ago he had, mor- 
ally speaking, mildly run amuck in London; but he 
had now left these things behind him with conspicu- 
ous success. Good form ” was for him the whole 
duty of man — a deposit of solidity was beginning 
to be precipitated upon him, body and mind. 

Both these brothers, therefore, were exactly suit- 
able to the life they lived. Harold was supposed 
to be coaching for the army; Theo was supposed to 
be learning the management of the estate and every 
autumn accompanied his father on horseback to 
mark trees. 

Now Algy was not so happy in his vocation. He 
was individualistic without being self-sufficient like 
Harold ; he was sociable without the inglorious suc- 
cess of Theo. He depended too much on other peo- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


31 


pie to develop his lines in loneliness; he possessed 
'too much character to fit smoothly into wholly con- 
ventional surroundings. 

This evening the smoking-room presented a kind 
of section of all this to the observant student of hu- 
man nature. 

On the right of the fire sat Old Mr. Banister, with 
his sunset complexion well set off by his white shirt- 
front and his velvet coat. He handled his cigar as 
an artist his paint-brush — delicately, reverently, 
and with apathy — administering smoke to himself 
and observing the progress of his ash as interestedly 
as a painter his picture, or a gardener an aspiring 
orchid. It was part of his evening’s work to smoke 
one cigar as well as possible, to make the most of it, 
to appreciate every development. About four min- 
utes after the stump had been laid aside was the 
proper moment for whisky, which he dispensed to 
experienced friends with a kind of sacerdotal seri- 
ousness. 

On the chair opposite sat Lord Brasted, another 
veteran of the smoking-room who knew when to say 
what, how far praise should go, when silence was 
eloquent, and how far the young men should be de- 
ferred to. The two were as Knights of the Round 
Table who understood one another perfectly. Each 
deferred to each on certain subjects. Lord Brasted 
was the specialist on motor-cars; his host on the 


32 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


management of a country estate. Each, too, had his 
squire this evening. Jack Hamilton sat by his cou- 
sin, in a quilted smoking-coat, his hands in his 
pockets, one long leg, ending in a neat sock and 
shoe, cocked towards the blaze, well-bred, silent and 
intelligent. His hair was perhaps the most charac- 
teristic thing about him. It was black, glossy, and 
perfectly smooth. It resembled a neat wig. It 
was impossible to conceive of it as ruffled. Theo 
sat behind his father, obviously the son of the house, 
ready to light the candles at the proper moment, full 
of shrewd comment on the somewhat limited sub- 
jects before the house, with the peculiar glazed com- 
plexion of a sanguine young man who lives out of 
doors. Harold was almost invisible behind the 
guests^ chairs, his elbows on his knees, deep in 
“ Badminton ” on climbing — a sport of which he 
had had no experience. Thoughts of Sybil Mark- 
ham moved pleasingly before him as he studied the 
almost incredible pictures of persons in knicker- 
bockers ascending rocky aretes. He had not spoken 
a word for twenty minutes. 

And poor Algy sat in the middle, in a chair with- 
out arms, pulling hard at cigarettes, attempting to 
join in the conversation, longing to go to bed, recog- 
nizing with a kind of fury at himself that he was not 
in the least at his ease. 

They were talking about guns just now. Lord 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


33 


Brasted had asked an intelligent question, implying 
his own inexperience, and Theo, corroborated by his 
father’s pontifical nods from time to time, was de- 
livering a little discourse, helped out by anecdotes 
and statistics. It was all appallingly serious. The 
gravity was as of priests over casuistry, or doctors 
over a new treatment of an old disease, or artists 
over a new school. Some one, it seemed, had is- 
sued a treatise on the degrees of left-barrel choke ” 
best adapted to a variety of circumstances, illus- 
trated by diagrams, and a controversy was in full 
blast in certain pink papers. Something or other, 
Algy gathered, was going to be revolutionized ; and 
one part of him understood that he ought to be ac- 
quainted with such a subject. After all, he re- 
flected, all this was a principal element in his life 
and engaged the absorbed attention of his elders. 
Yet there was another part of him that protested; 
and he was almost astonished at the energy of the 
protest. 

You see,” said Theo seriously, '' it’s all a ques- 
tion of the average distance of the bird. Of course, 
that will vary with different people.” 

Lord Brasted nodded two or three times. 

'' You can rule out the question of walking up, 
nowadays,” said Theo, ‘‘ and that simplifies it. It’s 
not like the old days, when the second barrel always 
meant from ten to fifteen yards increase of distance.” 

3 


34 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


I understand that/' said the guest solemnly. 

Algy sighed, rather too loudly; and his father 
looked at him. 

But he paid very little attention, for the revolu- 
tionary spVit was uppermost just now. It seemed to 
him, with his newly awakened perceptions, really 
extraordinary that such a subject should be treated 
at such length. Here were four young men — for 
even Jack Hamilton had made a remark or two — 
entirely absorbed in the question. They had been 
talking on it for nearly twenty minutes, previously 
to which they had discoursed chemical manures for 
forty more. And this was a typical evening. As 
he looked back over the five years during which he 
had been an inmate of Olympus, he could never re- 
member any other sort of conversation ; but this was 
the first time that interior protest had become artic- 
ulate within him. The conduct of the meeting ran 
on its regular lines. His father always sat in that 
leather chair, the principal guest opposite. The 
consumption of a cigar occupied as nearly as possi- 
ble three-quarters of an hour, then came the pause, 
then the whisky; then, after a ruminative interval, 
the Ite Missa est was pronounced in an unvarying 
formula; and all the while these subjects were dis- 
cussed in a rotatory form of argument. No par- 
ticular conclusion was ever arrived at; it made no 
difference to anybody, ever; and yet this, it seemed, 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


35 


was the recognized and approved method of spend- 
ing the last hour of the day. Of course there were 
variations — entrees, as it were, between the solid 
courses — anecdotes occasionally of a certain char- 
acter, the discussion of certain kinds of people, and 
the rest ; but the main features were the same. 

Algy sighed again. 

‘‘ You’re sleepy, my boy,” said his father genially. 

How about turning in ? ” 

“Oh! I’m all right,” said Algy hastily; and he 
removed his legs. 

Theo was off again now, retracing his argument ; 
but Algy, in a kind of revolt, deliberately withdrew 
his attention. 

He had had a disappointing evening. Mary had 
been far from him at dinner; there was even a fern 
between them. He had sat next Sybil, with Harold 
beyond her, and the clergyman’s wife on his right. 
It had been astonishingly dreary. The drawing- 
room had not been much better; he had even been 
reduced to examining books upon the round table, 
for Mary and Lord Brasted had entertained one 
another agreeably at the further end of the room. 
It was not in the least what he had rehearsed in the 
train, and in his very soreness he had been driven 
inwards. In a kind of despair he had wandered 
back at last into the ante-room, where obviously he 
was even less wanted than anywhere else, for he had 


36 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


run straight into the middle of a confidential inter- 
view between Harold and Sybil, and relations be- 
tween him and his brother were slightly embittered 
in consequence. Harold had told a genial story 
against him publicly during the ceremony of candle 
lighting. And now the heavy air of the smoking- 
room completed his discomfort. 

What, after all, he asked himself now, as he sat 
waiting for the break-up, was the object of all this 
elaborate existence ? Roughly speaking, sixteen 
hours in each day were consumed in laboriously do- 
ing nothing of any importance and the remaining 
eight in recuperating energy to spend sixteen more 
in the same way. Six hours of the sixteen were 
employed in painstaking efforts to kill something in 
as complicated a way as possible, about four more 
in consuming food, and the rest in various processes 
by which all these other things might be done in 
as perfect a way as possible — dressing and undress- 
ing, smoking, giving orders, making preparations, 
talking and standing about — that was really the 
day. 

And the remarkable thing was that this was nor- 
mal, not exceptional : it was the life towards which, 
apparently, education was directed. It was lived by 
all persons who could afford to do so. A man who 
so lived from the age of twenty-three to that of 
ninety was held by the world to have lived well. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


37 


His father so lived ; Theo was beginning so to live. 
Younger sons lived other lives because they were 
younger sons and were compelled to do so. 

. . And so,’^ ended Theo at last, it seems 

to me that we shall have to make a change. Ardine 
Maxwell was saying so one day last week. It’ll 
have to come.’' 

Mr. Banister shook his head obviously, pushed his 
empty tumbler aside and stood up. 

Well,” he said, using the formula, how about 
turning in ? ” 

Harold shut his book briskly and came forward. 

I think it’s all rot,” he said cheerfully. '' Don’t 
you agree, Algy ? ” 

This was plainly derisive ; and Algy too stood up 
uncomfortably, affecting not to hear. 

You’re so jolly interesting,” went on his annoy- 
ing brother. “ A positive babbler.” 

‘‘ Move there,” said Mr. Banister pacifically. 


CHAPTER II 


<CT ET’ S sit down a minute,’' said Harold. 

Sybil and he had wandered away from the 
Sunday afternoon group on the lawn, step by step, 
hatless and desultory, sincerely unconscious of any 
purpose ; they had looked at the goldfish in the stone 
basin below the cedars a hundred yards away; they 
had passed out through the wire gate and up the 
grassy stoop between the promontories of the trees ; 
they had come right up beneath the whispering roof 
of beeches over the russet ground of last year’s 
leaves, to the point where four rises met in the heart 
of the wood. Here was an aged seat set back among 
the rhododendrons that bordered the Little Lake, 
facing straight down the tunnel up which they had 
come, and upon it they sat down. 

It had been a Sunday precisely like all other Sun- 
days, so far. The males had come down in a long- 
drawn procession to find the females at breakfast, 
and a Sunday air had pervaded all things, generated 
no doubt chiefly by the substitution of trousers for 
knickerbockers and the drowsy memory of church 
bells heard an hour and a half previously There had 
followed an hour later another long-drawn proces- 

38 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


39 


sion, through the gardens and down the park, to the 
church half a mile away — a procession whose head, 
consisting of Mr. Banister, Mary and Sybil, had 
appeared in church three minutes before service be- 
gan, and whose tail, brought up by Harold himself, 
had finally caused a reverent turning of heads to- 
wards the end of the Venite. Mr. Banister’s 
brother was a Dean, and Crowston therefore was 
accustomed to see the squire’s pew tolerably full. 

There had followed the usual indescribably lan- 
guid return, via the kitchen-gardens, back to the 
house, where Lady Brasted rushed out to meet them, 
returned five minutes before in the motor in which 
her husband had driven her to mass at Heron’s 
Ghyll. The meditative groups had formed and re- 
formed on the terrace in the golden noon sunshine 
till the roar of the gong had drawn them indoors to 
satisfy the customary Sunday hunger, and then once 
more nothing particular had happened except the 
departure of the motor with three or four of the 
party. 

Harold had hung about with some anxiety until 
he heard Sybil’s clear little voice announce that she 
would prefer to stroll about, and he had then hur- 
ried back to the smoking-room for a decent interval, 
whence he had viewed her alone on the terrace. He 
discerned his opportunity and took it, and here they 


were. 


40 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


He's rather a pious beggar, old Algy,” said 
Harold, resuming his thread. He was at church 
early this morning, you know." 

Sybil began to arrange brown leaves at her feet 
with the end of her sunshade. 

‘‘ Not my line, you know," he went on with a 
grandly tolerant air, “ though I have no objections 
to it." 

A wood-pigeon in some rustling tower of leaves 
overhead began a-cooing and stopped abruptly as if 
he had suddenly thought of something else. 

“ I say, Sybil, when are you going away ? " 

Oh — er — Tuesday," said the girl deliberately, 
still engaged upon her pattern. 

Harold sighed softly. 

“ Why can’t you stop a bit longer ? " he de- 
manded. 

Sybil finished her design. 

‘‘ There," she said. 

Harold looked at it with ill-disguised impatience. 

“ Why can’t you stop a bit longer ? ” he repeated. 

“ Because I’ve got to go home," she said, with the 
same annoying deliberateness. 

Harold began to swing a foot. 

I believe you’re pleased to go," he said. 

Sybil looked at him with a sort of critical interest. 
The circumstances made her feel very grown-up in- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


41 


deed ; she thought she was behaving with admirable 
discretion. 

Of course, Tm always pleased to go home,” she 

said. 

Harold, too, was enjoying himself, though he told 
himself he was not. Sybil was always like this now. 
A year ago they had been excellent friends* They 
had ridden together like two boys, talking inces- 
santly at the tops of their voices, arriving late for 
meals, flushed and excited, vanishing again on mys- 
terious affairs at the earliest opportunity. That 
had all been as natural as possible. Then a color 
had come into their relations, as faint and yet as 
decisive as the first tint of sunset across the normal 
blue of the sky, and Sybil’s behavior had instantly 
shown a change of complexion. Harold’s first 
shock had been in the previous Christmas holidays, 
when he had demanded that Sybil should accompany 
him to the roof of the house at midnight to see the 
old year out. He had been aware of a certain thrill 
of excitement as he had made his request (for he 
had asked nobody else to come with them), and he 
was quite startlingly disappointed when she had re- 
fused. It was from that fatal night that Harold 
dated his sorrows. She had been really tiresome 
ever since then, he told himself in despondent moods. 


42 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


Yet at the same time he was aware that her com- 
panionship gave him quite a new kind of pleasure. 
Four years ago, when she had first come to Crow- 
ston, on the footing of a sort of third-cousin-by 
marriage-who-needed-companions-of-her-own - age, 
he had been bored by the feminine intrusion; then 
there had developed friendliness, and finally this new 
relationship that was quite different from all else. 
She came about twice a year, but he had never felt 
quite the same sort of dismay at the prospect of her 
departure. And here she was now being as tire- 
some as ever, and there were only two days more. 
He racked his brain for reproaches. 

‘‘ I think you might be more decent,’’ he said, 
‘‘ considering there’s only to-morrow left.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

She was looking at him with her grave Gains- 
borough, high-browed eyes, and was astonished to 
see the annoyance suddenly become real. 

Oh ! this is too much,” he said, and stood up. 

She became aware then that it was something else 
that annoyed him, and, following his eyes, saw a 
figure walking very fast towards them down the 
sun-frecked ride, swinging a stick. 

There was no hope for it. Algy must come right 
up to them. There was no other way. She only 
hoped he would not be tactless enough to stop. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


43 


The incessant bickerings between these two were 
beginning to distress her. Besides, it was rather 
distressing to her to see the way in which the elder 
always got the worst of it. 

Algy marched upon his doom unheeding. 

“ I say, Eve lost Toby,’^ he said, a dozen yards 
away. You haven’t seen him ? ” 

Harold said nothing, but looked vindictive. 

“ He went after a rabbit,” went on Algy genially, 
unconscious of offense. 

'' I wish you would go after a rabbit,” said Har- 
old bitterly. 

‘‘ You needn’t be offensive, anyhow,” snapped 
Algy, flushing and moving off. 

Harold uttered a short laugh. 

It was characteristic of these two to speak in de- 
tached symbols. All connecting phrases had, 
through long interchanges, become eliminated. One 
brother played a counter and the other another, and 
the game ended in a manner bewildering to the out- 
sider who did not know the game and saw nothing 
decisive arrived at. But Sybil had seen these two 
in company sufficiently often to understand the rules. 
In this case Algy had been off his guard, Harold 
had attacked effectively, Algy resisted clumsily, and 
Harold made a swift sign of victory. That was all. 

She waited until the homespun figure vanished 


44 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


round the turn of the tunnel, and while his footsteps 
among the leaves were still audible she spoke, fidget- 
ing with her sunshade and looking down. 

You were offensive, you know,” she said. 

Well, why can’t the beggar keep away? ” burst 
out Harold. He’s always running his nose in 
everywhere.” 

Sybil was silent. She knew perfectly well that 
her sympathies were with this one ; he was so much 
more easy and brisk and attractive. Algy always 
had been a little clumsy and apart from this world. 
But she was sorry for him, too. 

I don’t know what’s the row with him,” said 
Harold again. He doesn’t seem to belong some- 
how. He was just like that at Eton, too.” 

You have left, haven’t you? ” 

He nodded. 

Yes; end of last half. Going up to the House 
next month.” 

They were in smooth water again now. Harold 
sat down once more in the warm gloom, and the two 
talked as before. The conversation would not have 
been worth reporting. It was of the .kind that 
twenty thousand couples of boys and girls alone 
know how to carry on; it was not about anything 
in particular; it circled round small events and re- 
turned always to the same two centers, to Her or to 
Him. She was clever and he was clumsy, she par- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


45 


ried and he attacked, she was mistress of the situa- 
tion and he was not master. A small, panting, 
wiry-nosed dog ran into them of a sudden out of 
the bushes with the air of a privileged poacher, lay 
down on an outskirt of the girl’s dress, and cleaned 
himself; and she paid him ostentatious, physical 
attentions, but her patting and pulling were purely 
mechanical, and the dog understood it, though the 
boy did not. They looked really charming, these 
two, framed in the dark green of rhododendrons; 
flecks of warm sunlight moved on her white dress 
and his brown holland; faint woodland sounds — 
the crowing of pheasants, the buzz of flies, the 
breathless patter of a reconnoitering rabbit, the li- 
quid rush of a coot across the pond behind them — 
these made melody in the air about them. 

Toby was satisfied after a while, though he had 
omitted to clean the bridge of his nose, and, sighing, 
displayed a pinkish stomach to the breeze, lulled by 
the warmth and the sounds and the protective hu- 
man fellowship, and it was not until, hot in pursuit 
of a dream-rabbit, he began to kick violently among 
the dry leaves that Sybil remembered that tea would 
be ready on the lawn. 

'‘Darling, wake up,” she said suddenly to the 
terrier. " Time for tea ! ” 

They went down together very slowly, walking 


46 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


about a yard apart, she trailing her sunshade with a 
pleasant rustling behind her, he with his hands in 
his jacket-pockets, eying this and that on either 
side, regretting that the afternoon was gone. 

It was not that he had any definite programme; 
he was a much younger son, she had about twopence 
a year of her own and no prospects ; but his dreams 
so far as they were formulated took the form of an 
income in the City and a small house in Kensington. 
There was no reason why that should not be reached 
five years hence. 

‘‘ What are you going to do after tea ? he asked 
as they passed up towards the big cedar. 

“ I must go to my room,’’ she said. 

(n) 

Algy had passed a lonely afternoon, and had en- 
joyed himself vastly until his encounter with Harold. 
Mary had gone in the motor so, obviously, the best 
thing to be done was to go into the deep woods and 
think about her. He had called at the stables for 
Toby, since Toby would not require any conversa- 
tion, and had gone straight across the park behind 
the house to a certain pine-topped slope above the 
village. 

It was really a superb afternoon, and he passed a 
very pleasant hour among the trees, lying on the 
needles, smoking a couple of cigarettes and looking 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


47 


out through the mellow air between the ruddy stems 
down to the red-roofed village and squat Norman 
church that drowsed in the hazy sunlight half a mile 
away and below. Toby was, after all, a slight dis- 
traction, since it was necessary to see that he did not 
stray, but when Algy had seen him completely set- 
tled down with a noise like the panting of a small 
and feverish steam-engine to the excavation of an 
almost indefinitely deep rabbit-hole, he gave himself 
up to tranquil meditation. 

This turned, of course, chiefly upon Mary. It was 
pleasant to have, as it were, a center to which he 
could withdraw from all those other rather annoy- 
ing persons who interrupted his actual intercourse 
with her, and he pleased himself with constructing 
endless settings in which he and she should some day 
live in uninterrupted bliss. This was a long busi- 
ness and involved many side-issues. He considered 
the kind of house where they should live, the course 
of life, the hours for meals, the arrangements of the 
rooms — in fact, all the tiny details and none of 
the principles. 

In the course of this he dwelt for a little on the 
people staying in the house, looking at them with 
wonder — at Lord Brasted, that stout and genial 
nobleman who should have been born a chauffeur, 
a man who had found his vocation for the first time 
with the invention of automobiles; his wife, that 


48 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


zealous convert to Popery, in itself a strange and 
impossible religion, who stood like a distinguished 
arum-lily with its head on one side, and a red- 
crossed prayer-book; on well-bred Jack, who said 
nothing and did less and yet appeared to fulfill 
almost perfectly some undefined function in life, 
since every one was pleased with him. His own 
family, too, came under review, persons of activity 
and energy who accomplished nothing. He re- 
viewed his meditation of the previous evening. 
And, finally, there was himself. 

Now, it was perfectly true that he, too, did nothing 
particular; but he had discerned, at any rate, what 
was to be done. He was to marry Mary. This, 
again, he perceived was, strictly speaking, not any- 
thing superficially different from what his father 
had done and what the other males of his acquaint- 
ance had done or would do. But it was Mary that 
made the difference. To marry Mary was to be, 
rather than to do; and Doing, after all, is only of 
value so far as it contributes to Being. This, then, 
is the point of existence, he perceived. To Be. 

At this point he thought that he had made a new 
discovery, and sat up to congratulate himself upon it. 
And overhead, like a ruined roof, the dusky fans ex- 
panded into the clear liquid of the sunlit air, and 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


49 


beneath him drowsed the village, and about him was 
the breathing life of a myriad beings of every order, 
from the stubborn root of the pine beneath his knees 
to the energetic hind-quarters of Toby, half disap- 
peared into a sandy pit a dozen yards away. . . . 

Being, he said to himself again; and what is that? 


Algy made quite a number of discoveries that 
afternoon, formulating to himself, under the stimu- 
lus of his sentiments, a quantity of thoughts hith- 
erto only half-perceived. It was not strange that 
Religion, dogmatic and emotional, was the frame of 
many of them, and even more than the frame. His 
rediscovery of God, a couple of months before, had 
been a real experience, and to-day he saw, after a 
manner unfamiliar to him, that the Creator was not 
so wholly disconnected from Creation as he had 
been accustomed to believe. There was plainly 
something, he thought, holding all together, as force 
held matter, and since included with matter was 
conscious Being, included also with force must be 
something that was, at the lowest, conscious Being. 
Of course, Mary was his microcosm. It was she 
herself that gave such infinite value to her hands, 
her eyes, her hair, to her buckled shoes and the faint 
scent of her dress, even to her door at night as he 


4 


50 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


went past it on tip-toe. Then what, the solemn 
metaphysician asked himself, gave value to her? 

He relaxed his clasped knees as he put this ques- 
tion to himself and lay back once more, staring up 
with his clear, puzzled eyes, under his tilted Panama, 
into the clear sky, crossed now and again by black 
specks of sentient being called gnats. . . . Why 

then, he said, this is the point of God’s existence — 
to give an eternal and infinite value, as well as an 
origin, to all that is. Such was Algy Banister’s first 
glimpse of the Absolute. . . . 

It must have been nearly four o’clock before he 
moved. Toby, wearied at last of his pathetic quest 
after the Absolute Rabbit and lying all abroad un- 
der a bracken fan, rose and stretched each hind leg, 
trembling with tenseness, to an almost incredible 
length in a dog so small, before trusting himself to 
face a further walk; but Algy hardly noticed him. 
The world to* him had that strange aspect of unre- 
ality which it always wears after prolonged and 
drowsy thought in the open air, but it seemed sacra- 
mental as well, an unsubstantial presentment of 
something else. 

He went briskly along the mossy ride, seeing on 
his left the blue landscape rise and fall with his steps 
beyond the saplings and on his right the deep hum- 
ming woods, only half-conscious of the excursions 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


51 


of the refreshed Toby, who with a furtive, interested 
air scurried in and out of the undergrowth. He felt 
that he had arrived at profound truths — truths, 
whose bases and shaggy sides he had seen before 
amid cloudwreaths of distraction, now visible and 
soaring into the illimitable sky. He had seen them 
more than once during his silent London walks be- 
neath the flushing dawn, when there seemed to be a 
space and a stillness about him not usually obtain- 
able. I do not think he was a prig; he did not be- 
lieve himself especially favored, or especially pleas- 
ing to every one: he only regarded with interest 
what he seemed to see. 

At about a quarter of a mile from the Little Lake 
he became aware of the absence of Toby ; but it was 
useless to spend time over him. He whistled half a 
dozen times; he went back a few steps; he listened 
to the autumn hum of the woods. Then he passed 
on, unknowing, to his encounter. 

He was extremely angry as he left the two again, 
and strode down towards the house. Harold was 
not usually so offensive in company. What made it 
worse was that he knew that he himself had been to 
blame to some extent. Yet also he knew that an 
interruption of that kind from Theo would not have 
even tempted Harold to annoyance. Here was a 
new train of thought, or rather an old one retrod- 
den. He asked himself . hopelessly, as his wrath 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


52 


subsided, why it was that he was never at his ease 
and in what lay the secret of his clumsiness. There 
was his younger brother, fully as brusque as him- 
self, yet somehow accepted in company as a pleasing 
addition. There was Theo, far heavier, he knew 
well enough, in perception and intuition, yet always 
a tolerable companion. Above all, he despaired 
when he thought of Jack Hamilton, of his well-bred 
tact, his unruffled severity and his well-brushed 
hair. 

In a kind of passion of angry introspection he 
wheeled off once more opposite the garden gate and 
turned up among the bracken at a point whence he 
could command both the garden entrance on one side 
and the carriage drive on the other ( it might be that 
the motor parly would return for tea), and threw 
himself down there once more. 

The Absolute seemed retired once more beyond 
the sky; there was no Unity anywhere. Being was 
all very well, but Doing unfortunately was its ex- 
pression; and if Doing was a series of blunders — 

He soothed himself once again by a visualization 
of Mary and by a passive yielding of himself to the 
fragrant peace of the woods and looked out com- 
paratively at peace twenty minutes later, himself 
unseen, at Harold and Sybil accompanied by the ter- 
rier, as they passed within fifty yards of him. 

“ Don't forget to-morrow morning, then," said 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


53 


Harold as he opened the gate ; “ they’ll be off by 
ten, and then — ” 

The clash of the gate drowned the rest, and a 
murmur only followed as the steps went up the 
gravel path towards the house. But even the half 
sentence deepened his loneliness. 

He lay there an hour more, till the evening breeze 
stole up from the west and set the bracken a-shiver. 
Tea did not matter, he told himself; besides, he 
could have some when the motoring party returned. 
Meanwhile he would like to get to the bottom of his 
meditations. But there was no sound from the hill 
down which the wheels must come; and there did 
not seem any more material to formulate beyond the 
fact that God was the Absolute and gave its value 
to everything. It sounded trite put into words, but 
he was deeper than words, and knew it. He had 
hold upon something, he thought, of which the 
crowded physical life of the woods, his own long, 
pulsating limbs and breathing lungs, even the very 
images formed by him of the Unimaginable were 
but the fringe of a superficies. The restlessness 
generated by that thought and the chilly breath 
across the fern combined to make him sit up. No; 
he would not go back to tea ; he would take another 
round and be back before sunset. 

Then his own hand on his own knee attracted his 


54 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


attention — sinewy, brown and long fingered. 
That too, then, signified something — some tiny 
detail of thought from the Absolute Mind. He 
looked at his fingers wonderingly, and instantly 
thought of Mary’s. Then the train of ideas was 
broken and he stood up, stretching himself, till his 
muscles cracked and the blood rushed to his head. 
Yes ; he would have another walk and go back to the 
house presently. 

It was all terribly unhealthy ! 

(Ill) 

It is time to be more explicit about Mrs. Banister, 
and that is a difficult task. She may best be pic- 
tured by a series of negations. She was not hand- 
some, nor tall, nor clever, nor stout ; neither was she 
repulsive, nor short, nor stupid, nor thin. She was 
a kind of Least Common Multiple of the female 
nature. Perhaps the two positive things that can 
be said of her was that her front teeth slightly pro- 
truded and that she was possessed of a certain 
placidity, and even that was more the negation of 
irritability than an actual virtue in itself. People 
became aware of its presence, as of an invisible rock, 
when waves of circumstance beat against it in vain. 

When tea was over on this Sunday evening she 
remained in her chair, while one by one the others 
dispersed. It is to be presumed that a succession of 


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55 


thoughts passed through her mind, and, if so, it may 
be assumed that they were of a disconnected and 
unemotional nature. 

She became aware, after a certain period, that the 
garden gate leading down the grass avenue to the 
village clashed; and looking in that direction with 
her pale blue eyes she descried a minute or so later, 
the white figure of Sybil, alone, moving slowly up- 
wards towards the woods. 

A train of thought was. ignited — or rather it be- 
gan gently to smoulder . . . Harold . . . Theo 
and Mary . . . incomes . . . professions 
. . . Algy . . . she paused on the last 
point, for he always puzzled her a little, contem- 
plated almost passively his faint air of Ugly Duck- 
ling, wondered where he was; then, as a relief, 
passed on again to Harold and his brisk activities 
. . . his homespun suit ... his sunburn- 
ing. . . . 

At six o’clock the bells began from the church half 
a mile away among the trees. It was very Sunday 
evening. The light was actually golden; the park, 
with its long grass-slopes seen beyond the terrace 
and the trooping woods above, had that appearance 
of extraordinary opulence of life and tranquillity 
that seems the peculiar possession of English es- 
tates. High above the pines against the sky, be- 
neath which Algy had meditated this afternoon, 


56 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


specks wheeled and dropped, and a solemn vesper 
cawing began from the elms behind her. 

A door shut somewhere ten minutes later, there 
was the sound of footsteps on gravel, and she saw 
moving churchwards through the gardens two 
maids escorted by a man. All this vaguely con- 
tented her, especially as she did not propose to go 
to church again herself. It was plainly her duty to 
wait for the motor-party. Then she wondered 
when the party would be back and thought she 
would go indoors, as the shadow of the house had 
already reached her. 

About ten minutes later, as she rustled slowly up 
the first flight of stairs, she heard a sound that made 
her pause to see whether by any chance it was the 
throb of the motor coming down the drive. But, 
instead, it was quick steps coming up the stone 
stairs that led up from the garden into the house, up 
which she herself had just come, and an instant later 
Sybil came through and stopped suddenly, looking 
up at her. 

The girl’s face was strangely white, and her lips 
shook. 

Mrs. Banister,” she said breathlessly. Then she 
suddenly sat down on one of the hall-chairs. 

My dear ! ” cried the elder lady, and rustled 
down again. But Sybil was up, looking at her with 
an odd tremulousness, putting out her hands. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


57 


“ It is all right,” said the girl, still in that breath- 
less voice. He’s all right now . . . they’re 

bringing him along. He’s all right.” 

A door banged overhead, and before Mrs. Ban- 
ister could speak the cheerful voice of Harold broke 
in from overhead. But his mother had turned and 
was looking, with rather a bewildered apprehensive- 
ness, at a small procession of three who appeared at 
that moment coming through the wide door at the 
head of the garden stairs up which Sybil had run 
just now. 

The footman, whom Mrs. Banister had seen just 
now on his way to church, came first, carrying a 
battered Panama hat. Algy came next ; and behind 
him fluttered a pale housemaid in her Sunday 
clothes. 

Algy looked rather odd and swayed a little as he 
came; but he resolutely turned aside the footman, 
who seemed to wish to support him, and came for- 
wards across the stone-flagged passage. He cer- 
tainly looked odd, extremely white, with various 
stains about his nose and mouth and very bright 
eyes, of which one was a little bloodshot. 

“ My dear boy,” said his mother, perturbed as a 
cow might be at a waved handkerchief — perturbed, 
not agitated. 

Algy made a little gesture ; but it had in it a touch 
of triumph as well as of bewilderment. 


58 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


‘‘ I’m all right, mother,” he said rather hoarsely, 
and his eyes wandered to Sybil, who was standing 
again looking at him. 

By George ! ” came a genial voice from the 
stairs: “ What’s the matter with your nose, old 
man? ” 

A sound broke from the girl’s mouth. 

“ I’m all right,” said Algy again. A black- 
guard — Miss Sybil will tell you.” 

He went on, smiling in a strange one-sided way, 
as if he was a little drunk, and put his hand on the 
banister ; but there was still an air of triumph. 

“ I’ll just go and wash this off,” he said, with a 
desperate attempt at off-handedness, and began, still 
holding to the banisters, to mount the stairs. 

‘‘ My dear boy ! ” said his mother feebly. What 
have you been doing? ” 

She’ll tell you,” he said. 

But Mrs. Banister went after him; and the two 
below stood in dead silence, listening to a murmur 
of question and answer ascending. 

Then Harold made a grotesque face of bewilder- 
ment; and the next instant Sybil was down on her 
chair, sending out peal after peal of hopeless, hyster- 
ical laughter. 

She struggled to stop. 

The footman, who was still standing respectfully 
alert, holding the straw hat, suddenly looked down 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


59 


his nose and was presently gone. Harold stared, 
amazed at his success. The door from the outer 
hall opened — no one had heard the arrival — and 
Mary and Theo came through and stopped, aston- 
ished. The voices of the Brasteds were heard from 
outside. 

And still the hall rang with laughter. Sybil, with 
her head back and her hands clutching her sides, 
rocked and swayed with it; tears were streaming 
down her cheeks, and still she laughed; through it 
came words, terribly distinct, disconnected, and 
spasmodic. . . . 

“ He looked so funny — so funny — it was in the 
road — the man knocked him down — rude to me 
— I ran away — he came after — his hat — his hat. 
Then you made that face — oh! he looked so 
funny — 

This was real hysteria ; and Mary was on her like 
a cat, shaking, scolding, frowning; then suddenly 
Harold laughed too, one loud roar, and stopped, 
portentously grave, as Theo stepped forward. 

It was one of those scenes that fall without warn- 
ing from the sky, utterly unexpected and irresistible. 
It was a combination of circumstances that must 
have their way; and certainly Algy had looked ex- 
tremely ludicrous. And still Sybil rocked and 
moaned with laughter on the chair, and Mary shook 
and scolded. 


6o 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


Harold, in a kind of desperate discretion, looked 
vaguely upwards, and then, for the first time, ap- 
peared to realize that Algy must have heard it all; 
for, as he looked, he saw him turning away from the 
gallery overhead, with his mother still beside him, 
and there was an odd look on that queer, one-sided 
face. 

Harold still stood a moment, conscious of a very 
clear stab at his heart and understanding, as in a 
kind of intuition more than from Sybil’s sobbing 
words, what it was that had happened. He perceived 
that Algy had behaved decently for once — so he 
would have expressed it — and that he had behaved 
extremely badly in laughing. He understood that 
..Sybil had been insulted and that Algy had fought 
for her; and in a kind of fury of contrition and in- 
dignation, and even envy, he turned and ran up- 
stairs, just as the Brasteds appeared from the outer 
hall. 

Algy’s room was in a dark passage opening out of 
the gallery above the hall, and Harold, running 
along it, almost ran into his mother. She appeared 
to be standing at the door, trying the handle. Then 
she shook it. 

‘‘ My dear boy,’’ she said for about the fifth time. 
“ Let me in. . . . You must bathe your face.” 

There was no answer. Harold, breathing beside 
her in the dusk, heard from the hall beneath one last 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


6i 


sobbing bubble of laughter, and then Mary’s voice, 
very stern and severe. 

** Let me in,” said Mrs. Banister again. 

(He listened intently, ashamed and miserable; 
but there was no sound.) 

‘‘ I shall fetch your father,” she said. 

A very deliberate voice, rather hoarse, came from 
within the room : 

“ Mother, please go away. ... I will wash 
my face and come very soon.” 

‘‘ Will you have some arnica? ” 

No, thank you.” 

Mrs. Banister released the handle and moved off, 
still gravely perturbed with silence; and Harold, 
standing alone, heard her voice mingling itself with 
Mary’s in admonition. 

He waited a moment, still listening to the silence 
within, rather agitated and ashamed, and indignant 
too that it was Algy who had fought for Sybil and 
not he himself. He thought he heard the bed creak, 
as if some one had thrown himself upon it; then 
once more silence. He bent his ear to the door : 

“ Algy,” he said. “ Algy, old man.” 

There was no answer. 

‘‘ Algy,” he said again. 

Then there was a movement and a footstep. The 
key was turned, and Algy stood there in his shirt- 
sleeves, his hair tumbled into a kind of absurd 


62 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


plume, and a white, miserable anger in his face. 

‘‘ Kindly let me alone,’" he said. I want no one. 
I heard you laugh.” 

“ But, Algy— ” 

The door banged straight in his face. 

Harold stood a moment, furious at the reception. 
Then he kicked the door. 

“ All right,” he snarled; wheeled and went away, 
crushing down his shame with both hands. 

(IV) 

Algy hardly knew how to face his family at din- 
ner; and yet it had to be done. He could not cor- 
relate his thoughts, or decide upon his internal atti- 
tude. A number of apparently irreconcilable 
elements had somehow to be combined. He had 
behaved well ; that seemed to him one fact ; he, with 
his hands in his pockets, had, by the merest chance, 
strolled out through the gate in the park-paling 
through which Sybil, also intent on a lonely walk, 
had passed two minutes before, and he had been 
just in time to catch a young man in gaiters with a 
lurcher-dog attempting, apparently, to kiss Sybil. 
Algy had not reflected for a single instant; he had 
hit the young man, without a word, as hard as possi- 
ble under the ear; and the next instant he had seen 
stars and stripes. He had retained sufficient con- 
sciousness to call to Sybil to run and had then, with 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 63 


fury nerving him, attempted to defend himself. 
But the next few moments had passed in a whirling 
manner, during which two or three times he had 
seen a red face and struck at it and had himself 
been battered and knocked from side to side. 
Finally, at some sound presumably, as Algy sat 
among the nettles, the young man had disappeared 
^ into the woods on the other side of the road, after 
kicking Algy’s hat contemptuously into the air. 
Algy had followed Sybil after a minute or two, had 
found her very white and shaking and had walked 
with her home, almost in dead silence. 

Well, that was one fact: he had behaved well; 
and the next fact was Sybil’s laughter, followed by 
Harold’s. 

He had heard the comments too — that he had 

looked funny.” There were moments when he 
lay on his bed, when he told himself she was 
simply hysterical; there were other moments when 
he preferred not to think so and to let his re- 
sentment have full and passionate play. Then there 
was Harold and his snarl at the door. Then there 
was the consciousness of having been badly beaten 
by the young man — the hat-kicking was a sign of 
that ; then there was a sensation that he had bragged 
to himself in silence and had expected to be treated 
as a hero. 

All this, combined with a teasing headache, a 


64 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


smarting lip, an aching nose and a knowledge that 
he looked funnier ” than ever as the bruises dark- 
ened and puffiness emerged made him extremely 
sullen and unhappy, from an instinct to keep some 
protection over his sensitiveness. Worst of all, 
there was an intense consciousness of Mary and an 
expectancy towards her attitude. 

He looked his very worst as he came down to the 
drawing-room and found her there. 

And she, when she saw him come in alone, saw 
only his sullenness and his mauled face. She 
thought he should not have come down looking like 
that — he should have dined upstairs, as Sybil was 
doing. It looked so very unpleasant. Then she 
made an effort and came a step nearer to him, look- 
ing away. 

I congratulate you, Mr. Algy,’’ she said. I 
hope you aren’t in much pain.” 

He mumbled something, overcome with sudden 
delight. 

‘‘ Sybil’s not coming down,” she said, unable to 
keep her eyes off that crushed-looking mouth. 
‘‘ She asked me to thank you again. Have you any 
idea who the man was ? ” 

“ A poacher from London, I expect,” he said 
thickly. “ I sent to the keepers to tell them.” 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


65 


Then there was silence. Algy put his hands in 
his pockets and took them out again. 

Then Mr. Banister came in, and there was cheer- 
ful rallying and the names of heathen gods and 
threatenings against the young man in gaiters and 
recommendations to learn boxing before next time 
and a clap or two on the shoulder, and Algy’s soul 
retired back again into the very inmost depth of his 
consciousness and lay there, like a rabbit in a bur- 
row, nervous and alert, at the tramplings over- 
head. 

Harold ignored him that evening, but finally 
thrust a lighted bedroom candle, with careful non- 
chalance, into his hand — an unusual attention. 
Theo said a word or two and then talked dispas- 
sionately about poachers in general. Mrs. Banister 
made another remark or two about arnica and ad- 
vised him to go to bed early. Mary looked at him 
several times, but said no more. The other guests 
made polite inquiries and expressed indignation. 

• It was not a pleasant evening for Algy. He 
thought he caught a footman breathing contempt of 
him as he handed him salad. He sat and listened to 
the talk, vaguely disappointed that it was not about 
him, yet feeling what he hoped. It was not at all 
as he had expected ; it was not as it would have been 
if one detail had been reversed, and it had been he 


5 


66 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


who had thrashed the young man, and not the young 
man him. 

He waited a moment or two in the hall, holding 
his candle, until the others had dispersed. Then he 
went to bed. 

He could not sleep; his head ached too savagely; 
and he was thinking too violently. 

His mind went over and over what had happened. 
In the fragrant darkness he saw again and again the 
hateful red face and the whirling fist, clear against 
the tender green and gold of the sunset woods, and 
felt the shock of the blows. He saw every detail 
of the puttee-gaiters climbing the fence to escape, the 
wrecked hat lying in the dust. He saw the little 
scene in the inner hall and heard Sybil’s sobbing 
exclamations of how ‘‘ funny he looked,” and Mary’s 
scolding ! and he saw, too, Mary’s embarrassed face 
congratulating him. 

He dropped off now and again into a feverish 
doze, in which the phantoms of his mind material- 
ized into a horrible reality, and he flinched from the 
fist and awoke again to the heavy beating of the 
pulses in his nose and lips and temples. And all 
the while, gradually, far down in his mind, below 
imagination and visualized shapes, a certain consid- 
eration took form. 

I find it hard to describe it exactly, for Algy was 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 67 


never a good relater; but it was something of this 
kind — certainly a platitude, but new enough to 
him. 

He began to see that the value of his act lay in its 
intention and that the disagreeable detail that he 
had been worsted, instead of spoiling, rather en- 
hanced the value. He saw that this was the real 
thing — that he had attempted to save this girl from 
an annoyance; and that the other things did not 
matter. 

That was simple enough; but the next perception 
of his was deeper. It was that Mary and the rest 
did not entirely understand this. Of course, they 
recognized it; that was why they had tried to be 
pleasant; but he saw that they did not give full 
value to the fact, that his act lost real grace in their 
eyes through not being successful and that the ig- 
nominy of his having been absurdly thrashed really 
weighed in their minds against his attempt. 

And, yet further, he began to see that the whole 
incident was a kind of test-case of their condition 
and that, while they all gave real weight to the igno- 
miny, they did not give equal weight. 

As he turned from side to side on the cool pillow 
he began to draw up a kind of list. 

At the very bottom, I regret to say, he put his 
mother. She seemed to see nothing at all except the 
physical bruises on his face. She had said some- 


68 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


thing pleasant, of course, but it was purely conven- 
tional. What she really considered of importance 
was arnica. 

Next came Theo. He had just recognized the 
gallantry of the attempt, but he obviously regretted 
the whole thing extremely and had tactfully talked 
about poachers in general. It was absurd that a 
Banister should be mauled by a single man on his 
own estate. 

Next came his father. He too had congratulated 
him; but he had whisked off into fury against the 
poacher and the need of learning boxing. 

Next came Harold. That boy was obviously 
ashamed of himself, and that was more eloquent 
than congratulations. Yet he had laughed; he had 
kicked the door ! he had shown contempt. 

And last and highest came Mary — for he dis- 
missed Sybil as a hysterical child, with no judgment 
at all. Mary, without doubt, had given real and 
deliberate weight to the intention of the act. She 
had flinched at the sight of his mouth; she had 
wished that he had been successful; but there had 
been the clear consciousness of the other element — 
a more instinctive consciousness. He perceived, 
then, that Mary was the nearest to understanding 
what he did. 

As for the guests, he put them in brackets, as it 
were. Both Jack and Lady Brasted, he thought, 


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69 


were probably nearly up to Mary’s standard. 

Of course, it was improper that Algy should have 
been so analytical. He should have given them all 
equal credit for understanding; but there it was. 
He saw it : he was feverish and in pain, and he for- 
mulated it. 

It was obvious that such circumstances should 
have added a fact to those he had collected during 
his afternoon meditations; but it was a fact of a 
good deal of significance too, when it is considered 
what the end of Algy was. He perceived now 
plainly that there are two views of the world that 
may be taken: first, that the important thing is to 
preserve the conventions, to box well, to be suc- 
cessful, to keep up appearances, to retain society in 
its conservative mould ; and the second, that there is 
a mysterious quest to be followed, that there is a 
certain far-distant object to which way must be 
made, regardless of obstacles, and that, if conven- 
tions fall in ruins about the trampling traveler and 
the most precious domestic ideals be upset, yet that 
he must continue to trample. 

All this, of course, fitted in with what he had 
thought this afternoon; in a certain sense it clenched 
it and remained with him. 

The curtain fluttered in the night breeze at his 
window, and he fell asleep. 

Downstairs they still talked about poachers. 


CHAPTER III 


(I) 

T ADY BRASTED was a very picturesque per- 
son and was subconsciously aware of it. She 
did not actually say to herself, ‘‘ This is graceful : 
therefore I will do it,” but, practically it came to that. 
She was still well under thirty and looked much 
less, and she found even her relation to her red- 
haired, stoutish husband, who was a radiant fifty, 
picturesque on that account. It had a suggestion of 
young ivy and middle-aged oak. As a child she 
had been deliberately ingenue, encouraged to it by 
her mother, who also had an eye to suitability. She 
had had one incident which very nearly made her 
sincere — a short and violent love-story with an ad- 
venturer called Christopher Dell; but she had sur- 
vived this and managed to fit it all into the picture. 
A new incident was to her as an ornament that must 
find its place; she carried it about, looking round 
her, and finally placed it somewhere — occasionally 
on a high shelf ; and this love incident was as a grim, 
slaughtered head frowning suggestively from a dark 
70 


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71 


corner. It really looked well so long as the light 
did not fall full upon it. 

Five years before she had suddenly discovered 
the extreme gracefulness of the Roman Catholic re- 
ligion and had, so to speak, furnished her rooms 
afresh with a prie-dieu or two, visible yet modest, in- 
laid with colored woods, and a slender crucifix of 
ivory and pearl upon her writing-table. She was 
not exactly play-acting. She selected that religion 
deliberately as the theory by which in future she in- 
tended to live. She was seen on Saturday after- 
noons, in a veil, at Farm Street and might be 
observed, after her confession, a graceful bowed 
figure, praying, really praying, before Our Lady’s 
altar. 

All this shed a new and very exquisite light upon 
the whole of her life. She began to think she was 
spiritually minded. She began to wonder whether 
it was not really perhaps true, as her friends told her, 
that her coming into a room brought with it, quite 
unconsciously to herself, a certain indefinable frag- 
rance and purity. Her part began to be that of 
suggestive silence. She was aware that sometimes 
amid the most frivolous conversation her eyes had 
a far-away look without her intending it in the least. 
She began to think that even she, perhaps, might do 
a little to Help others, particularly young men. As 


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for her husband, ‘‘ dear old George,'’ of course he 
was very straight and sturdy ; but he did not — did 
not quite understand. Oh, yes ! he was all that was 
dear and good and honest ; but he was a Protestant, 
you see, and so — well, of course, you understand. 

She was perfectly right about George. He was 
indeed a Protestant, with a strong conviction of the 
commonsense of the Establishment as interpreted 
by confidential bishops in the arm-chairs of the 
Athenaeum. He had even opened Church bazaars, 
he had been lured, with much delicate and flattering 
diplomacy, to appear at an Albert Hall Demonstra- 
tion, and he regarded the little that he understood 
of his wife’s religion with good-humored contempt. 
He attended Church on Sundays in the country; he 
thought himself the very type of the Sensible Lay- 
man and regarded the next world as through the 
door of the Georgian mausoleum that rose gloomy 
among cypresses on his estate at Esher — a 
fact which was best treated with a discreet melan- 
choly. 

And Jack, who had been brought up with Annie 
Brasted, occupied an indefinable position between 
them. Not his dearest friends had the faintest idea 
whether either this world or the next provided him 
with any theory. He was perfectly decorous, rather 
depressed in a gentlemanly sort of way; he dressed 
beautifully; he was in the Home Office from ten to 


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three unless he had some other engagement. And 
there is very little more to say about him. 

Lady Brasted, after breakfast on Monday morn- 
ing, took her rosary, her diary bound in orange mo- 
rocco. and a small pious book in French, printed on 
rice-paper, and went out to the cedar. Again, sub- 
consciously, she found a seat upon which the sun- 
flecks fell with peculiar grace, as in Mr. La Than- 
gue’s pictures, and sat down upon it. She could 
just see from there, she told herself, that line of blue 
hills, framed between the pillars of the terrace, that 
was so suggestive. 

Then she began, gravely and simply, looking out 
in her far-away manner at the hills, to consider 
whether there was any one in the house whom she 
could Help. 

Three minutes later, as if guided by an angel, 
Algy appeared on the top of the garden steps and, 
seeing no one, began to descend. She remained per- 
fectly still till he came upon her; then she looked 
up at him sweetly. His face was badly bruised, she 
noticed. 

Aren't you going shooting, Mr. Algy?” she 
said. 

Algy’s heart sank — he had not seen her ; and he 
had wished to run over his new ideas once more ; 
they were not quite arranged yet. 

Not going till twelve,” he said rather gruffly. 


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‘‘ Then will you take me round the gardens ? ” 
she said, ‘‘ I long to see them all again.” 

There was nothing for it. She placed her diary, 
her pious book and her pearly rosary in a neat heap 
on her chair, stood up, lifting her parasol and, on 
second thoughts, languidly took up her rosary once 
more. . 

Oh ! but it was dreary for Algy. He wanted no- 
body just now. He wanted to be let alone, and 
here was this woman, tactfully congratulating him 
on what he had done last night, making it perfectly 
clear that her thought was his and that she too un- 
derstood that intention was the thing that mattered. 
She insinuated herself, by half-finished sentences 
and significant silences, even by sudden shadowy 
smiles, into that small arid secret retreat that he had 
just succeeded in making for himself, and she 
brought with her her dangling rosary, her devout 
atmosphere, her genius for intimacy and her careful 
artlessness. 

By the summer-house, above the fish fountain, 
she said : 

“ It is a wonderful thing to learn our own soli- 
tude — to learn that nobody, nobody can quite un- 
derstand our own point of view. Dear Father Bad- 
minton was the first who taught me that ; it is a very 
hard lesson.” 


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75 


As they walked on the grass beneath the avenue, 
she poured out, if I may say so, a vibrating silence 
of sympathy that thrilled him as with a subtle gas 
which he could not exclude. The worst of all was 
that it was undeniable that she did understand ex- 
actly what he was feeling. He tried to tell himself 
she did not, but it was useless. She nodded softly 
at his desperate half sentences ; she said precisely the 
right thing; she knew all about him, as a scientist 
knows all about an impaled beetle; she even corre- 
lated a few of his unsorted thoughts and gave him 
one or two new ones, undeniably beautiful and true; 
she fitted things on to Christian doctrines, and, su- 
premely, she indicated to him that she had not dis- 
closed half her treasures, and that there lay behind 
all that she said a world of truth and confidence to 
which he had not as yet the entree. 

He was both indignant and intoxicated as he came 
back with her shortly before twelve — indignant at 
his own elementariness and banality, since it seemed 
that he was not in the least apart or original after 
all, and intoxicated, in spite of himself, by being 
understood so perfectly ; and he did not yet recognize 
that his indignation was a sign that there were still 
parts of his soul to which she did not and never could 
penetrate. 

She put her hand very gently for an instant on 


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his arm as they approached the steps back again on 
to the upper lawn. 

“ Thank you/’ she said with soft emphasis — no 
more than that. And once more fury surged within 
him at the thought that there was an understanding 
between them. 

‘‘Dear, uncouth boy,” she said to herself (for 
she had a habit of formulating a situation), “and 
not one here understands him.” And she deter- 
mined to see something of him in London — per- 
haps she would be able to introduce him to Father 
Badminton some day. He certainly was different 
from the rest of his family. He seemed to her 
more pliable. 


(ii) 

Mary came out half an hour later, and’ found 
Lady Brasted still sitting under the cedar. Mary 
was rather sore again this morning, for Theo seemed 
really hopeless. She had expressly stood in the 
outer hall, with a newspaper behind her back, to 
give him a chance of making way, and he had strode 
through twice, hardly looking at her, first without 
his gaiters and then with them. 

Then she had gone to the billiard-room, leaving 
the door open, and knocked the balls rather noisily 
about. She knew that the guns were kept just out- 


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77 


side. And all that he had done was to look in 
sharply and to demand whether that young fool 
Harold were anywhere about. No, he was not, she 
said rather tartly. Ten minutes later, through the 
open door of the billiard-room, down the short pas- 
sage and through the window, she had seen the party 
climb into the motor and go off, with Sybil looking 
at them. Then she threw her cue on to the table 
and went out into the garden. 

Lady Brasted lifted her eyebrows questionably, 
and smiled without parting her lips. It was a smile 
she subconsciously reserved for unerhotional occa- 
sions. 

‘‘ Yes, they’re just gone,” said Mary, and sat 
down. 

These two knew one another pretty well ; it was a 
case of Christian names and kissing ; each, in public 
and in their correspondence, would have called the 
other her dearest friend ; each, in private, attempted 
to assume a pedestal of slightly greater height than 
that on which the other stood. Annie Brasted 
knew that she had a reasonable, respectable and ro- 
mantic religion and that Mary had not; Mary knew 
she had a purely intellectual interest greater than 
Annie’s. Annie was married excellently, Mary 
wished to be; but Mary could stand with men on 
their own ground and be welcome there, and Annie 


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could not and did not wish to. Objectively consid- 
ered, therefore, Lady Brasted could give points to 
Miss Maple; subjectively, Mary thought that she 
won them all back from Annie, and, at any rate, she 
was still her own mistress. Psychologically speak- 
ing, therefore, it was a complicated situation ; neither 
was yet the victor and each wished to be. 

Now, Lady Brasted this morning was flushed 
with confldence; she knew quite well that she had 
rung the bell, so to speak, in her conversation with 
Algy, and she was in a Helpful mood ; so she closed 
forces without delay. 

‘‘ You look tired, my dear.’’ 

I am tired,” said Mary abruptly. She, on the 
other hand, was disjointed and relaxed and did not 
understand that the first shot had been fired. 

There was a long silence. 

Lady Brasted began to review the situation, for 
she felt like a ministering angel this morning. This 
poor girl! she said to herself, feeling very old and 
experienced. 

She had kept her eyes open since Saturday, and, 
as her intentions were really rather delicate, she had 
seen what was going forward. Here was Mary, 
twenty-nine years old, a year over her own age, still 
at a loose end ; and she was pretty and charming and 
sensible. And here was Theo, a perfectly respect- 


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79 


able eldest son ; . . . and here was Algy 

also. . . . She had observed these three, espe- 

cially at breakfast this morning, and two of them in 
the motor yesterday. . . . Surely, here was 

enough to venture upon. 

I have been for a nice walk with Mr. Algy,” 
cooed Lady Brasted presently. ‘‘ The poor boy ! 
How well he behaved last night; and how difficult 
for him!” 

“ Difficult ? ” said Mary, knowing perfectly what 
she meant. 

‘‘ So difficult to be at his ease ! And he is not at 
all that kind.” 

“ I don’t understand.” 

My dear, I am sure you do. He is just a 
straight-forward, unsubtle boy with . . . with 

a very tender soul ; he was terribly distressed at be- 
ing beaten by that young man. Now, Mr. Theo — ” 

“ Theo wouldn’t have been beaten,” observed 
Mary. 

‘‘ That is just it. There are no problems of that 
sort for Mr. Theo.” 

Mary knew this mood of Annie’s and did not find 
it congenial just now. Suddenly she was startled 
by a white hand upon her knee. 

“ My dear,” said the other. ‘‘ You don’t wish to 
talk ? 


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This was a direct challenge, and Mary was rather 
taken aback. She did not exactly know what it 
meant. 

“ I am only a little tired,’’ she said uneasily. 

Lady Brasted rose sweepingly, gathered her ob- 
jects of piety, looked smilingly and intently into 
Mary’s eyes, swooped delicately and kissed her. 
Then she was rustling towards the house, very slen- 
der and youthful, and Mary stared after her. 

Mary was really startled as she sat alone in the 
speckled shadow. She had been taken completely 
by surprise and began to wonder violently what in 
the world Annie Brasted meant by this sudden sym- 
pathy. She knew Annie’s Tact when she said it — 
in fact, it was difficult for any one not to see it ; and 
it was a weapon which she did not know how to 
meet. She had seen it before, and it always meant 
something. Yet Annie could not have detected any- 
thing, because there was nothing to detect. 

Psychological self-analysis was like a floating at- 
mosphere of disease, it seems, during these days at 
Crowston; for in five minutes after Lady Brasted’s 
departure, Mary, like Algy, was at it too. 

She ran over her previous meditations first — 
concerning her need of this kind of life, the present- 
ableness of Theo, his obvious good-fellowship with 


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her and her distinct liking of him, and, to her as- 
tonishment, perceived that this latter element must 
have made some progress even during the last two 
days. Her peevishness of this morning in the bil- 
liard-room had a personal touch in it of which she 
had not been previously aware. Her desire to see 
that square, brown figure, with its ruddy face and 
flat cap, come into the room had certainly not been 
wholly mercenary. ... At dinner, too, last 
night, she remembered now certain faint emotions 
that could hardly be accounted for by sheer calcula- 
tion of the rent-roll of Crowston. 

Back and back her mind went, circling inwards. 
The motor on the previous day had had one of those 
spasms of bad temper that by idealistic materialists 
might almost be attributed to a possession of some- 
thing resembling animal life; and she remembered 
watching with a curious intentness the goggle-eyed 
figure which, with hands on knees, peered doubtfully, 
behind the energetic Lord Brasted, into the maze of 
handles and coils which seemed responsible. He 
had said a word to the two ladies, and she, she re- 
membered, had nodded, still looking, but without 
understanding. 

Then there had been church. She was aston- 
ished to remember how much of her meditations 
had been centered on the solid worshiper at her side, 


6 


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and, even more significant, her sense of irritation at 
Algy’s black coat in front, of which the collar was 
not perfectly in place. 

And so on. . . . 

Mary got up presently, and began to walk softly 
up and down in the shadow. . . . And it was 

Annie’s Tact that had called out all this energy of 
thought — not, perhaps, exactly maidenly, for Mary 
was not at all ingenue. It was that Tact that had 
driven her inwards, in a sudden doubt of self-ques- 
tioning as to whether she understood herself. 

She grew even more restless presently and wan- 
dered out on to the sunny terrace between the ped- 
estals and up and down the grass path between the 
flower-beds and the railings that held out the urgent 
grasses of the meadow-land. 

Was it possible, she asked herself, that she was 
really in love after all? She imagined Theo as 
dead, and felt no very lacerating agony. She im- 
agined him married to somebody else — Sybil Mark- 
ham, for instance — and immediately found herself 
disliking Sybil Markham with an extraordinary ve- 
hemence. That would be intolerable. . . . 

Why? . . . 

( She began to finger the limp, evil-smelling leaves 
of a great scarlet poppy. ) Why? Was it solely be- 
cause Sybil had no business to be mistress of such 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 83 


estates? Was it that only? No; it was not that 
only. Then what was it? 

She began to visualize Theo once more — his 
face, his gaiters, his solid, pounding walk. Then 
she broke off and asked herself yet another ques- 
tion. 

Supposing Algy was eldest son and Theo second, 
what then? Algy could be hers at the lifting of a 
finger, though several years her junior. The ques- 
tion was. Would that finger be lifted if Theo was 
about ? 

Here she stuck, tearing off the thin leaf and roll- 
ing it into a ball as she moved on. She did not 
know. She thought not. She was not quite 
sure. . . . Oh! yes she was, quite sure that 

nothing, not all wide Crowston, could induce her to 
marry Algy. That was certain ; he was too clumsy 
and self-conscious. Besides, she did not care for 
him. Well, then, what about Theo? That did not 
settle Theo. Or rather did it not rather seem as if 
it did settle Theo? 

She quickened her pace, a little flushed; and, to 
relieve the tension, began to be extremely vindictive 
towards Annie Brasted. What business had Annie 
to be so disagreeably tactful, and patronizing? 
Marriage was not everything, not even marriage to 
a fat nobleman who knew all about motors that must 
be known. 


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No; but marriage was a good deal. And once 
more Theo appeared before her. 

She was distinctly cross at lunch. There was no 
other word for it ; and Annie’s discreet murmurings 
about this and that subject, not even remotely con- 
nected with any male creature under Crowston roof, 
made her even more annoyed. 

The men were all out shooting. For some topo- 
graphical reason it had been thought better not to 
join them at lunch, and somehow their absence gave 
an air of desolation to the dining-room. She heard 
a suggestion that she should go out again in the mo- 
tor, which had returned, under the care of Lord 
Brasted’s own chauffeur, and whom he trusted, said 
Mrs. Banister, as he trusted himself ; but she hardly 
paid any attention to it, beyond announcing that she 
would sooner sit out in the garden. Sybil, it 
seemed, was of another opinion and observed that 
Harold had told her that they would begin on the 
Bovey acres after lunch and that if she was in the 
dip beyond the keeper’s cottage at half-past two it 
might be possible to see a very pretty bit of sport. 
As there was no very startling demand to see this 
pretty bit of sport, Mrs. Banister volunteered to 
take Sybil herself, if dear Annie and dear Mary 
were quite sure they could amuse themselves. 

It seemed that they could, and ten minutes later 
Mary was watching Annie from the morning-room 


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85 


window once more drifting across to the cedar. 

She waited five minutes more to avoid any ap- 
pearance of haste ; and then, with all her doubts re- 
solved into one clear question, she too went out. 

Annie saw her coming and discerned its signifi- 
cance. She had not spoken at random this morn- 
ing, and she took her courage resolutely in both 
hands, reminding herself of her mission to Help 
others. 

'' I want you to tell me something,” said Mary, 
sitting down without ado and looking straight at her 
friend. ‘‘ Why did you think I was tired this morn- 
ing?” 

My dear, I thought you looked so.” 

“ Did you mean anything else ? ” 

Lady Brasted hoisted, so to speak, sympathy into 
her eyes and a particular kind of smile on to her 
lips, putting out a hand gently towards the other’s 
arm. 

Mary, dear, are you sure you mean to talk about 

it?” 

Mary’s head jerked a little. 

I want you to tell me what you meant.” 

My dear, you must allow an old married woman 
a little insight. Need I say any more? ” 

Mary’s face grew quite white. 

think that’s very impertinent,” she said. 

Yes, I know I asked you, but you had no business 


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to think such things. That kind of thing might do 
a lot of harm ; besides, there isn’t, as it happens, the 
very least truth — ” 

She stopped suddenly. But it was too late. 

Lady Brasted was conscious of a nervous commo- 
tion within her, but she did not flinch from her 
thrust. 

No truth in what, Mary dear? ” 

In — in — in what you thought.” 

But I did not say a word, my darling.” 

For a moment or two there was a complete silence. 
For Mary, in her fury, it was impossible to reckon 
up the situation, nor to calculate precisely what her 
friend’s words did or did not count for. 

Then she stood up suddenly, seeing that explana- 
tion was impossible. Her lips shook violently ; once 
or twice they opened to speak. Then, with a kind of 
quick wrench, she had turned towards the house 
again. 

A minute later Lady Brasted was rustling after 
her. 

It was all very feminine. 

(Ill) 

Theo was shooting quite extraordinarily badly 
this afternoon, but he was conscious of no other 
pressing problem except this. It was curious, he 
told himself, how a man’s shooting went up and 


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down. On Saturday he had killed three rights and 
lefts and had not missed more than one single bird 
flying alone ; to-day he had killed no rights and lefts 
at all and had further distinguished himself imme- 
diately after lunch by solemnly missing a lolloping 
rabbit clean with both barrels. 

He had a headache, he told himself, and it must 
have been because he had been foolish enough, this 
hot September day, to drink beer instead of whisky 
at lunch. This was all the more stupid, he thought, 
because he distinctly remembered now feeling not 
quite well during the last three or four days. It 
must be his liver again. He resolved to drink 
whisky at dinner and no port. 

When Sybil came out with her hostess in the mo- 
tor, the chauffeur, for some perverse reason of his 
own, chose to halt at a point in the dip where Har- 
old was just exactly hidden* by a thornbush, and 
where Theo was fully visible over the hedge against 
the sky-line. Yet it seemed so obviously the place 
from which to have, the: best view of the pretty bit 
of sport that she did not dare to make any sugges- 
tion. 

The dip where they had halted, drawn up by the 
side of the high road that crossed the Bovey acres, 
seemed to have been specially created by an indul- 
gent Providence to afford a view of partridge shoot- 


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ing. On the right, it is true, there was not much to 
see, since the boundary hedge was hardly thirty 
yards away, and there needed but one gun, repre- 
sented to-day by Theo, to slay all that came that 
way, either straight down the stubbles or swerving 
across the road. But on the left a low hedge gave a 
full view of a long, slowly rising sweep of ground, 
across which, at right angles to the road, ran an 
excellent hedge where the other guns were posted. 

Harold alone was invisible, or rather all of him 
except his legs ; but Lord Brasted, Algy, Mr. Banis- 
ter, Jack Hamilton and a far-away stranger were 
full in view, dwindling with the distance. 

It seemed that the motor was just in time. The 
road fifty yards ahead curved sharply away to the 
right, and straight in front the broad stubbles ap- 
peared in perspective, crossed by a broad strip of 
dark green, denoting the roots where the mass of the 
birds would surely be gathered, and beyond this 
strip, even now entering it as Sybil looked eagerly 
out under her hand, were tiny moving figures that 
bobbed and vanished like specks across feverish eyes. 

It was a breathlessly silent afternoon, as clear and 
as Sundayish as yesterday, Sybil told herself. 
Slaughter seemed almost irreverent to-day, she 
thought, though she reassured herself by the mem- 
ory of the excellent cold partridge at breakfast that 
morning. After all, men must do something, she 


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89 


said, and women, as well as men, must eat; then 
why not partridges? Besides, Harold liked it so 
much. 

How tiresome that that boy would stand behind 
that bush! She turned resolutely on the leather 
cushions and stared at Theo, and, as she did so, 
came a distinct and sudden crack from the stranger 
on the far left; and, as she turned once more, an- 
other and another, and then, as she thought them, 
two stupendous bangs from beyond the thorn-bush. 
A brown thing came in a tumbled heap suddenly 
over the hedge in front, thumped, slid and lay still. 
That was Harold’s ; and she smiled all over her face 
with pleasure. 

A hand was laid silently on her arm. 

‘‘ Look, my dear.” 

Across the roadside hedge fifty yards straight 
ahead sailed suddenly a group of flying specks. 
Another dropping volley rang out on the left, but it 
was not at these. On and on they came, crossing 
slightly and rising, to the accompaniment of the 
death shots of their friends, straight up and on still 
to the right, with an incredible swift steadiness ; and, 
as Sybil stared, nearer even than Harold’s bangings, 
came two reports from the crouching brown figure 
against the sky on her right. There was the sound 
of a long hush and silence; and she saw Theo jerk- 
ing his gun open with a kind of savage impatience. 


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There were cries from in front, their high voices, 
as the beaters came to the middle of the roots, and 
again and again the bangings near and far from the 
line of guns on the left. 

Then again a covey crossed to Theo, and again 
two bangs and silence; then, glorious in his pride, 
like a fantastic toy, straight out of the hedge ten 
yards away rose, with loud crying, a bird looking 
positively gigantic, so near it was and so unexpected. 

Sybil knew well enough that this was a pheasant 
and that his time was not yet; all that she perceived 
in a moment; and the next, to her astonishment, 
came a couple of shots close at hand, and the great 
bird fell leaving a cloud of feathers behind him, 
smashed on to the road, hustled a yard or two, and 
lay still. Why, what in the world was Mr. Theo 
doing? 

But there was no time to ask. She heard an ex- 
clamation, and then a cheerful voice from Harold. 

My dear chap — ” 

And then again came the bang on the left, and 
Sybil saw a living speck float over Harold’s head in 
an exquisite parabola and fall. 

Then up the road, mad with fright, came a hare, 
appearing suddenly from nowhere, as their manner 
is. She cried out something, then bit her lip in 
self-repression and glanced up. That brown figure 
on the right was hurrying to the hedge with a gun 


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91 


up, and as the hare, after passing the motor, emerged 
again from it and sped up the road, even now 
scarcely fifteen yards away from Theo, she saw the 
gun go up to the shoulder. 

There followed a deafening bang; a cloud of white 
dust sprang up behind the hare, another bang, an- 
other cloud; and beyond it, running like a streak, 
appeared the hare, dwindling every instant. 

Damn ! ” 

She heard it, and again bit her lip. 

When she turned again, the brown figure was 
gone. 

About three minutes later a beater emerged into 
the road, then another and another. 

Then Harold appeared, walking with a swing, 
climbed down the hedge and came up to the motor. 

I say, that was ripping,” he said. “ Didn’t I 
tell you just right? ” 

‘‘What did you get?” 

“Three brace and a hare and two rabbits,” re- 
marked Harold in an aloof manner ; “ and they got 
more up the other end. I say, where’s Theo ? ” 

Sybil indicated with her head. She was leaning 
over the side. 

“I say,” she whispered, I thought pheasants 
weren’t — ” 

“ I know ; won’t we rag him. I say, mother, did 
you see that ? ” 


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I thought it a very nice shot/’ observed Mrs. 
Banister. 

‘‘ Oh ! an excellent shot ; not more than five yards 
off the end of his gun, and exactly three weeks too 
soon. . . . Theo.” 

Before there was any answer, Algy and his father 
appeared above the hedge. Harold turned to them 
genially. 

“ I say, Theo’s shot a pheasant.” 

It seemed to Sybil as if Mr. Banister was looking 
across the road rather intently at something. He 
paid no attention whatever to his younger son. 
Then he suddenly called — 

‘‘ Theo, my son, what’s the matter ? ” 

It was very odd that there was no answer ; nor 
was the brown figure visible. Mr. Banister scram- 
bled straight down the bank, handing first his gun 
to Algy, and then, without waiting to take it again 
and without even looking at the motor, crossed the 
road, an imposing figure in gray jacket and knicker- 
bockers, and clambered up the opposite bank. 

Sybil did not quite know what was happening. 
There seemed a curious hush. Harold still stood, 
looking blankly after his father who was through 
the hedge by now, and a moment later Lord Brasted, 
Jack Hamilton and Mr. Mortimer, the curate, the 
latter in a sombre gray, very neat and ecclesiastical. 


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93 


with a minute gold cross hanging from a button- 
hole, appeared above the left-hand bank and stood, 
also looking across to the other side. Mrs. Banis- 
ter seemed to notice nothing, and a group of beaters 
was engaged in laying out the game. 

What’s up?” 

It was Algy’s voice; and it seemed even more 
tactless than usual. Then Harold put down his gun 
suddenly on the grass by the side of the road and 
was up the bank too. 

“ Where’s your father? ” observed Mrs. Banister 
generally to the company. 

Then there was an odd sound from over the 
hedge; and the next instant Harold’s voice saying 
something in a quick undertone. But before the 
shooters on the left-hand bank were halfway down, 
a little group of three appeared on the right, clear 
against the sky, where five minutes before Theo had 
stood — the tall, old man on one side with Harold 
on the other, and the third in the middle, with a 
curiously twitching face. 

Just come and help,” said Mr. Banister, sharply. 
‘‘ Here, good men! Mr. Theo’s not well.” 


CHAPTER IV 

TLLNESSES are both dreary and complicated 
^ considered as a subject for description, and no 
doubt I should make many mistakes if I attempted 
to describe exactly what Theo Banister went 
through. But, very briefly, he sufiFered from appen- 
dicitis. On the Wednesday morning an operation 
was performed, and on Thursday morning Mr. 
Mortimer was sent for, in the Vicar’s absence in 
Lermatt. 

It was a very curious household regarded in the 
solemn light of the shadow of death. The Brasteds, 
with Jack Hamilton, fled at once, on the Monday 
evening. Fortunately they were independent of the 
train service and arrived at Esher in time for din- 
ner, bringing with them Sybil, who was to be de- 
spatched to her home next morning. But Mary 
staid on. Mrs. Banister seemed to desire a female 
friend, though she did not say so, and Mary, on an 
impulse, went to Algy and asked him to ask his 
father whether she could be of any use. So she 
staid. 


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95 


No one seemed to know how to behave, and all, 
therefore, took refuge in solemnity. After a long 
silence at lunch on Wednesday, Harold choked 
suddenly and left the room abruptly, and in sym- 
pathy with him, Algy had to bite very hard on his 
lower lip, which was still sore from his encounter 
on Sunday. It had been announced to them an hour 
before that the operation had not been as successful 
as had been hoped. The Crowston doctor, a per- 
fectly competent man, was to come again this even- 
ing and again on the following morning. The spe- 
cialist had returned to London. 

The worst of all was that amusement of any sort 
seemed indecent. Shooting was out of the ques- 
tion; even a round of golf on the park links would 
have been a trifle profane. Mr. Banister struck 
the key in which the house was to live by appearing 
each day in trousers instead of knickerbockers. 

Harold was horribly unhappy during the rest of 
Wednesday and showed it by an extreme degree of 
crossness. 

He wandered into the billiard-room about half an 
hour before the dressing-bell and found Algy knock- 
ing the balls about. He sat down by the fire, took 
up a '' Punch ” and stared in dead silence at a car- 
toon by Mr. Sambourne for about five minutes. 
And all the while he was framing a remark. 


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It came out at last. He banged the Punch ” and 
stood up, glowering. 

“ I think you might have the decency not to play 
billiards,’’ he said. 

Algy, who at that moment was addressing him- 
self to a stroke, made it with extreme though tremb- 
ling deliberation, watched the unsuccessful run of 
the balls with elaborate interest and then straight- 
ened himself. 

“ It’s as good as ‘ Punch ’ I think,” he said. 

Harold half lowered his eyelids in a way he had 
in annoyance. 

“ Oh ! well, if you think so,” he said, “ when — 
when Theo’s dying.” 

His pathos was too much for him, and, as at 
lunch, he went out hastily. 

Algy made a couple more strokes, put his cue 
down, went to the fire and leaned his head against 
the high mantelpiece. In both of them the sense of 
humor was just now overlaid. 

He, too, was extremely unhappy. He was going 
through emotions which he could not fully under- 
stand; but one thing he did see, and that was that 
to behave in as normal a manner as possible was the 
best thing to do. 

The element that particularly bewildered him was 
the same juxtaposition of Theo and death. It was 
as if a retriever developed a taste for Beethoven. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


97 


There seemed absolutely nothing in common be- 
tween them, and there was not the tragedy of a 
brilliant contrast. The two were unmixable, im- 
possible on the same plane. 

Death, to Algy’s mind, roughly connected the un- 
known, the mysterious, the delicate, the mystical, the 
spiritual, and Theo stood for shooting-gaiters, 
cigars and the pedigree of dogs. You do not put 
the “ Imitation of Christ on the same shelf as the 
‘‘ Sporting Guide,” though there is nothing what- 
ever intrinsically sinful about the ‘‘ Sporting Guide ” 
and nothing intrinsically holy about the “ Imita- 
tion.” Only, you do not put them on the same shelf. 
Yet upstairs that was the situation. Theo was next 
door to death. 

The passage of time, too, seemed such a relative 
thing just now. It was last Sunday only that he 
had been battered by a young man in a lane, yet, for 
all personal connection with the fact, it might have 
happened in his childhood. He no longer felt 
any sense of shame at it. That and shooting 
and the Bradsteds and even Mary, as he had 
thought of her last week, were simply in another 
volume. 

In so strange a mood was Algy that grief, prop- 
erly so-called, had not yet begun — scarcely even 
anxiety as it is commonly understood. If Theo, at 
this moment, had marched in in dress-clothes and 
7 


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said that he had got all right after all and wanted 
a knock at the balls before dinner, certainly a huge 
burden would have been lifted from Algy’s heart, 
but it would not have been exactly joy. Rather it 
would have been a sense of relief that things were 
normal again, instead of abnormal. 

But Theo was not there in dress-clothes. He was 
upstairs in his room, with two baize doors kept 
closed in the passage that led to it. He was in bed, 
with bandages and a drawn face, and two nurses 
sat by him, and a monstrous shadow darkened over 
him hour by hour. 

Since, then, things were so abnormal, within and 
without, Algy saw that to do normal things steadily 
was the only reasonable plan. He deplored Har- 
old’s artificiality, and it was exactly that which gave 
him his undoubted sense of a superior position over 
the extreme unnaturalness of the other. He, at any 
rate, had some kind of an anchor down. Harold 
had none. 

Dinner was terrible that evening. His mother 
and Mary were dining upstairs, and his father and 
Harold were scarcely relieving to the situation. Mr. 
Banister, following out some profound instinct, wore 
a swallow-tail coat instead of a dinner jacket and 
sat with an air of fateful gloom that would have 
brought inevitable disaster upon an hysterically in- 
clined observer. Harold ate rapidly and slightly 


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99 


and drank a good deal, and both of them were prac- 
tically dumb. 

Mr. Banister vanished again upstairs after dinner 
and did not reappear. 

Harold also vanished, but came to the smoking- 
room, where Algy betook himself, some half hour 
later. 

It seemed as if Harold had undergone a change 
of some kind since his flash of bitterness in the bil- 
liard-room; for he seemed comparatively softened. 
He sat down in silence for a minute or two, staring 
at the fire, yet without any sign of resentment, and 
at last he spoke. 

‘‘Algy, old chap — Tm — Tm sorry I said that 
before dinner.” 

“ Oh, that’s all right,” mumbled Algy, laying 
aside “ Punch” and covered in a moment with ex- 
treme and overpowering confusion. 

Harold swallowed once in his throat. 

“ I was beastly to you. I often am. I’m beastly 
sorry.” 

“ That’s all right,” mumbled Algy again. “ I’m 
just as bad.” 

But Harold seemed determined on a detailed peni- 
tence. He thrust out his boyish face bravely to the 
fire. 

“ Twice on Sunday, too : once in the wood, and 
in the house in the evening. I’m sorry.” 


lOO 


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Algy braced up his forces. 

‘‘ Look here, Harold ; shut up. I’m as bad as 
you. . . . There. Now let’s talk about some- 

thing else.” 

They did talk of something else then, but it was 
not very successful. They discussed, Harold with 
vindictive insistence, the identity of the young man 
who had battered Algy. They made, too, when 
their voices got steadier, cheerful remarks about 
old Theo ” and about arrangements for another 
shoot as soon as he was better. It was desperate 
work, but they did it, and Harold grew positively 
animated, though with a touch of feverishness. 

It was not until after ten minutes or so that Algy 
began to see the reason of his change of front, and 
he saw it, I suppose, through interpreting his own 
modified attitude. It was that Harold had a vague 
idea of being propitiatory to the Unseen Powers. 
These must be satisfied and soothed, since Theo 
was in Their hands : it would not do to be resentful 
and suspicious. He wondered whether Harold had 
gone upstairs after dinner to say his prayers; it 
seemed probable, yet to Algy, oddly enough, it did 
not occur that to say his prayers was exactly what 
was needed. Rather there was a sort of general 
attitude to the Supernatural that seemed more suit- 
able. He was perfectly aware that fervent ad jura- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


lOI 


tions, poured out even in dress-clothes in a fire-lit 
bedroom after dinner, need not always attain their 
explicit object. In fact, very often they did not, 
and even more pathetic petitions than those, if such 
were possible. Yet that there was an attitude re- 
quired he perfectly understood — an attitude which 
he could not have defined and yet which consisted 
rather in an identification of himself with Them, 
his will with Theirs, rather than in an attempt to 
wrench Theirs to his. This, he even perceived, was 
more likely to be successful in obtaining Theo’s re- 
covery than any amount of what was probably Har- 
old’s method. Intellectually he could not have de- 
fended the position; practically he was certain of it 
as sound. 

The two brothers went up to bed a little later, on 
tip-toe, after an elaborate and courteous lighting of 
one another’s candles. Men do not, like women, 
exchange long glances on such occasions: they mu- 
tually perform small offices instead. 

At the top of the stairs they paused; then peeped 
together, without a word, round the angle, up the 
corridor that led to Theo’s room. But there was no 
sign either of life or death. The baize door kept all 
secrets. They stared at it, fascinated, visualizing 
what lay beyond — the darkened room, the nurses, 
Theo, and the shadow of death. 


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A door on the right suddenly opened without a 
sound, and, without seeing them, their father came 
out in his quilted dressing-gown and turned through 
the baize door. But Algy caught a clear glimpse of 
that ruddy, troubled face, thrown into vivid light 
and shadow by the candle he carried, the white eye- 
brows, the pursed mouth, and once more the 
strangeness and abnormality of it all swept him 
away. 

If Theo was an incongruous subject for death, 
his father was no less an incongruous supporter in 
the conflict. What did even he, asked Algy of him- 
self, really know about it all, and what could he 
say? 

Mr. Mortimer was engaged on the Thursday 
morning in studying the “ Guardian,’^ which to him 
represented all that was brightest and best in Chris- 
tianity. It reached him always by the first post, and 
after propping it against his tea-pot during break- 
fast, he retired with it to his arm-chair till the bell 
rang across the village street for matins. 

The Vicar was in Switzerland, and Mr. Morti- 
mer read matins (the shortened form) to the 
schoolmaster’s wife’s sister and once more retired 
home to the ‘‘ Guardian,” a briar pipe and his chair. 
On other days than Thursdays he studied theology 
until eleven, theology of the Cathedral Dean type, 
but, as he remarked, a man must be in touch with ac- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


103 


tual life as well as with books, if he is to be efficient, 
so he devoted Thursday morning to the “ Guar- 
dian ’’ newspaper. 

He noticed with interest that the Bishop of Zebu 
was in England again as usual. That prelate, it 
seemed, thought that he could do more real good by 
pleading for his poor flock in England than by ac- 
tually ministering to them ; so he was accustomed to 
come home for the summer with his wife not more 
frequently than once in two years. 

(He always said on such occasions, with an exile 
smile, that his heart really lay in Zebu.) 

There was a meeting of the English Church 
Union, too, Mr. Mortimer observed with disap- 
proval, that had roused extreme enthusiasm in Man- 
chester — with disapproval, for, as he said, he had 
no sympathy with extremists. It was the glory of 
the Church of England to preserve a mean in all 
things, and Mr. Mortimer lent his aid to that deli- 
cate task. In a word, he disapproved ; that perhaps 
may indicate his attitude; or, if more particularity 
is required, he was vague without being wide, he 
was dogmatic on everything except dogma. He was 
earnest. And he was perfectly sincere. 

He was deeply interested this morning in an edi- 
torial on the subject How to Touch the Men,” for 
this was Mr. Mortimer’s special subject. Not that 
he was very successful, although his Bible-class on 


104 


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Sunday afternoons, enlivened occasionally by a cor- 
net solo, was far from being a failure ; but he had, 
like a certain hero of fiction, at least formed some 
ideas on the subject. His great point, which he 
urged at clerical meetings, was that if the men were 
to be touched at all, they must be met on their own 
platform, on their own level. The clergyman must 
not hold himself aloof. Was it not notorious that 
France was what she was simply because the priests 
were of the seminary and the sacristy ? The clergy- 
man, then, must shoot with his wealthier parishion- 
ers and play football with his poorer. He must be a 
man of clubs and gymnasiums and coursing classes. 
He must not refuse even to dance upon occasion. 

The ‘‘ Guardian,’’ it seemed, was of Mr. Morti- 
mer’s mind, and urged a more whole-hearted ad- 
vance into the social life of the people. It quoted 
with qualified approval a parish on the great North 
Road where a motor garage was in process of erec- 
tion in the vicar’s fowl-run — a step forward which 
at any rate was in the right direction, though prob- 
ably of too enthusiastic a nature. Cyclists’ services, 
however, at half-past three on Sunday afternoon, 
with short addresses on subjects, as Many shall 
run to and fro,” and facilities for tea to follow, met 
with that journal’s cordial praise. 

This was all very desperate and encouraging to 
Mr. Mortimer, and he began to read the article for 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 105 


the second time; but he had hardly begun when his 
gate slammed and footsteps came quickly up the 
flagged path. He was too deep in his subject to be 
curious, and from where he sat he could not see who 
was ringing so loud at his front-door, but a minute 
later he heard the steps go rapidly down again, and 
then his door opened. 

Please, sir, Mr. Theo’s much worse and would 
like to take communion. Would you kindly step 
up?” 

There followed consternation and excursions. 
Drawers were pulled out; steps ran to and fro; Jane 
flew across to the Church to unlock the vestry, and 
in about a quarter of an hour Mr. Mortimer, with a 
black bag, and Dr. Walsham How’s work on pas- 
toral theology in his pocket, was proceeding up the 
park at a rapid pace. 

It was his first wealthy death-bed, if such a phrase 
may be used, and he was nervous. He could not 
say quite the same things as to the farm laborers, 
or, at least not in the same language, and further, 
he stood in a certain inexplicable awe of Mr. Theo. 

It is true that he had shot with him several times 
since his coming to the parish, but he had not yet 
made sufficient way to be able to raise Theo’s 
thoughts through partridge-shooting to higher 
things. At dinner, too, it had proved equally diffi- 


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THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


cult. It might be that this man was on his way to 
be Touched, but the contact had not yet been estab- 
lished. 

Mr. Mortimer was completely sincere ; let that be 
understood. He was not at all superficial in his in- 
tentions; he was anxious, sincerely and humbly, to 
do what he could to help Theo to die, but he had not 
an idea as to how to set about it. It was for this 
reason that he had taken down Dr. Walsham How 
from his shelf. If all else failed he might read a 
little aloud perhaps. 

The great white house, solemn and serene look- 
ing, rose presently over the edge of the garden, but 
Mr. Mortimer was still agitated. He wondered 
how he ought to begin. My dear brother ” must 
be his phrase; but what next? . . . 

Er . . . my dear brother,” repeated Mr. 
Mortimer to himself. 

He had better begin with the Communion Serv- 
ice. It was very encouraging that that had been 
mentioned. At least that showed that the dying 
man was in earnest. After that he might per- 
haps ask for a little private talk. Well; he must 
see. 

A footman was waiting for him at the garden 
steps that led into the house. 

‘‘ How is he ? ” gasped the clergyman out of 
breath. 


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107 


** The doctor thinks he is sinking, sir. Will you 
step this way? 

The man threw open the door into the morning- 
room, and Mr. Mortimer went in. 

Mr. Banister was there, in a black tail-coat, with 
the doctor, a harmless but competent little man with 
the hair on his face resembling the cut of a horse’s 
curb that had slipped over his mouth. 

That red old face was very grave and twitching 
as the clergyman held out his hand with a murmur 
of earnest sympathy. 

Thank you, Mr. Mortimer. . . . Yes. 

. . . Yes, the doctor thinks he had better re- 
ceive communion at once. . . . He wishes 

to. . . . His mother asked him.” 

Then the brave old face twitched again, and re- 
solved itself into such a solemnity that even Mr. 
Mortimer felt a hysterical lump rise suddenly in his 
throat. 

‘Mt . . . is very unexpected,” stammered 

the clergyman. ‘‘ I was meaning to call and inquire 
this afternoon. . . . Er. . . . Shall I vest 

here and go up immediately? ” 

He was extraordinarily moved by the sight of the 
old man, who seemed as dazed and broken as a child 
in the face of sudden and violent cruelty. Dr. Wal- 
sham How seemed an unnecessary burden after all. 
Surely his heart was full enough now. 


io8 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


He tore off his coat, disclosing gray flannel shirt 
sleeves with white detachable cuffs, and opened his 
bag, listening, as he took out his garments, to the low 
talking of the other two, and meanwhile he framed 
sentences that sprang to his brain. 

Then his cassock was on, and he buttoned it hast- 
ily; then his stiff surplice, his Oxford hood and his 
black scarf ; and he began to take out the communion 
vessels. 

He turned, 

A — a little port wine, Mr. Banister, 
and . . . and a little plain bread. . . . 

Might I trouble you ? ” 

The old man rang the bell from where he stood on 
the hearth-rug, and nodded towards the clergyman 
as the man appeared. Mr. Mortimer repeated his 
request. 

It was a few minutes later that all was ready, and 
the footman still stood by the door. 

'' Might I ask the man to bring these other things 
upstairs, Mr. Banister?” 

Then a little procession was formed. 

The footman led the way carrying a decanter and 
a book, on which was placed a plate of bread cut into 
squares. Mr. Mortimer followed with the com- 
munion vessels under a white cloth, and Mr. Ban- 
ister came last. In the passage leading to Theo’s 
room, Mr. Mortimer halted, half turning round. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


109 


“ How many will receive?’' he whispered. 

The old man’s head jerked, but he could not 
speak. 

A nurse opened the first baize door as they ap- 
proached it, latched it back and passed on to the 
second. 

Mr. Mortimer’s heart was beating miserably hard. 
He was still a very young man, he knew no more 
really about Death than he did about Touching Men, 
and here was the double problem awaiting to test 
the ideas he had formed on both these subjects. He 
already was regretting having left Dr. Walsham 
How downstairs. 

Then the bedroom door was before him ; it opened, 
and he passed into the darkened room, straight up 
to the little rosewood table at the foot of the bed, 
seeing over it a still figure lying among the sheets 
and on either side faces watching. 

It was when Mr. Mortimer entered the room in 
his surplice and hood that the horrible and poig- 
nant pathos of the whole thing suddenly and for the 
first time pierced Algy clean through. 

He had been completely dazed by the report of the 
doctor that morning that Theo was sinking rapidly. 
It seemed impossible; it was so uncharacteristic of 
Theo to sink. He had remained in the billiard- 
room by the window where he heard the news, look- 
ing out at the great cedar in the mellow September 


no 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


air, holding his still unlighted cigarette, laboring to 
assimilate the fact. 

Then his father had sent for him. Theo wished 
to receive communion. His mother was going to 
be there and wished both her sons to be present and 
receive with them. It would be in half an hour’s 
time. Mr. Mortimer had been sent for. 

Algy had run to his room and emerged again 
twenty minutes later, seeing Harold go before him 
with a little book in his hand. 

Then the minutes of waiting in the half lit sick- 
room, for the mysterious parting Feast, with his fin- 
ger in a little tin-edged Prayer Book, had been on the 
crust of sorrow and unreality like the sun on 
snow. . . . Theo. . . . Theo. . . , It 

was Theo who lay there, between him and the win- 
dow, silent and motionless, his ruddy face hardly 
changed from when Algy had seen him last, with an 
august dignity as impersonal as a canopy over a 
child-king, entirely strange and unfamiliar, shadow- 
ing him. His mother and Mary knelt side by side 
beyond the bed, and Harold was on this side. The 
nurses had cleared the little rose-wood table with 
spindle-legs and an inlaid chess-board in the middle, 
and set it at the foot of the bed. Then there had 
followed a long silence. 

Still he had hoped against hope that the mysteri- 
ous rite that was to be done would somehow resolve 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


III 


the suspension of the chord and bring into one plane 
Theo and death ; for they still stood as apart as ever. 
Something was needed, something personal to 
unite with Theo, something infinite to complete the 
bridge on the side of death. A saint could do it, or 
a vision, or a voice — even perhaps some august me- 
chanical ceremony that was its own evi- 
dence. . . . 

And then Mr. Mortimer came in, and in a mo- 
ment the hope died. He was inadequate, Algy 
knew in an instant, inadequate beyond description, 
inadequate in training, character, and commission. 
Here he stood at the little table, moved and shaking, 
in his stiff surplice and academic hood, as he had 
stood, though then at his ease, in the pulpit last Sun- 
day, preaching on true manliness ; the thing had been 
as unreal as a child’s repetition. It was as virile as 
Mr. Mortimer himself on the Monday morning, in 
his dark gray Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, 
no more and no less. 

The theology he was commissioned to preach — 
what was that, but ideas formed on the subject? 
Was it possible to picture Theo, an hour or two 
hence, with a crown on his head, in a white robe, 
with a palm? ... But it was a metaphor! 
Then what did it illustrate? And, whatever it illus- 
trated, what name would Theo make of it all ? Was 
Death so great a magician as that — as to make 


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THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


Theo capable of any form of spiritual existence com- 
parable in the least to a white robe and a 
palm ? . . . 

My son, despise not thou the chastening of the 
Lord'* rose the trembling voice. . . . Whom 

the Lord loveth He chasteneth. . . . " 

And this was Theo, with his flat cap and red 
mask of a face and his giggling laughter at certain 
kinds of stories. . . . The “ chastening of the 

Lord ” . . . ‘‘ the Lord loveth ’' . . . 

And here he lay waiting, as simple as a child and as 
ignorant, willing to receive Communion since it was 
the proper action dictated to him by the only spirit- 
ual authority of which he was aware, and suggested 
by his mother. 

Yet Algy had no alternative to offer. Only it 
seemed to him as if somewhere there were wide 
spaces and movements larger than those little move- 
ments of the clergyman, and a sound more expansive 
than his little voice. But Christ Himself had said 
so — Do this in remembrance of Me. . . 

Somewhere, therefore, there was a link between this 
and that, an open door between the medically-some- 
thing darkened room and the vast, inexorable world 
towards which Theo’s face was set. . . . And 

where was that? Algy was dumb. 

Ye that do truly and earnestly repent. . . 

Now what, in God’s name again, did Theo know 


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113 


about that? Was there one man who had ever said 
one word to him on the subject? Repentance — 
that was a change of heart, a regret, an intention to 
do better. Was Theo then changed, or had any 
man ever told him how to be? If this instant he re- 
covered, what would be his comment a week hence ? 

“ By George, you chaps ” — the sentence formed 
itself complete before Algy’s twisting brain — “ By 
George, you chaps, I had a narrow squeak. Parson 
came, and all that you know.” 

Ah ! it was intolerable — “ By George, you 
chaps — ” 

Hear what comfortable words our Saviour 
Christ saith. . . . Come unto Me, all that 
travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you/^ 
For a moment Algy’s bitterness melted, and his 
eyes filled with scalding tears. "" Come unto Me.” 

And a great vision of a Divine Man with out- 
stretched hands shone before his imagination — 
One who cared for sparrows and even for heavy, 
complacent men who had never known themselves 
or Him — yet they must be heavy laden before they 
could rest — they must have “ travailed ” in their 
heaviness — and what did Theo know of this ? 
And again Algy crushed down his bitterness; for 
surely He must be great enough even for that ! 


8 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


1 14 


There was dead silence in the room as Mr. Morti- 
mer began the Prayer of Consecration. There was 
not more than one there who believed that it signi- 
fied more than a commemoration of an event done 
two thousand years ago, a memory of a Supper, 
4nd an aid to faith. It was what One had done to 
whom they looked with an uncertain hope and that 
He had bidden them do as an indirect aid to some- 
thing vague making for righteousness. Algy alone 
was not quite sure that it was only this. 

The clergyman broke the crumbling bread and 
laid his hands upon the cup ; then presently he knelt 
down. Theo’s head turned gently on the pillow, and 
he gave a sigh of pain or weariness. 

Algy closed his eyes again and began to pray, 
hopelessly, confusedly, desiring to be simple ; but he 
could not be. Again his mind tortured him, and 
images fled before him, little vignettes of Theo 
with his gun, Theo in dress-clothes, Mr. Mortimer 
in his Norfolk suit and the little gold cross at his but- 
tonhole. Even the sigh troubled him. Was Theo 
then just longing for the ceremony to be over? He 
had “ wished to receive Communion,’’ but had that 
wish been strong enough to persevere through ten 
minutes of religious service ? God knew; Algy did 
not. 

Then for himself. Was he, too, fit to receive the 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


115 

mysterious Food? He had sparred ever so slightly 
with Harold at breakfast before the doctor had 
come. He had lit his cigarette as he came through 
the hall, though his father had often told him not. 
Then there were other things — his furious pride on 
Sunday night, his imaginations. . . . 

Well, well, “ Come unto Me . . . all that tra- 
vail.” Hear what comfortable words ! All that are 
heavy laden. Then would Theo’s stoic bearing of 
pain count as travail ? 

The clergyman, still kneeling, stretched out his 
hand and took in his fingers a morsel of bread, swal- 
lowed it, and paused. Then he took the cup,- repeat- 
ing in a loud whisper — 

The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was 
shed for me preserve my body and soid unto everlast- 
ing life. I drink this in remembrance that Christ's 
Blood was shed for me, and am thankful." 

Mr. Banister received Communion first, where he 
knelt by his wife, taking in his shaking fingers the 
morsel of bread held out to him, then his wife and 
Mary. Then Mr. Mortimer passed round, brushing 
his silk scarf against the bed-post as he passed. 
Harold was the next, and then Algy. 

Algy received it in the palm of his hand, as he 
had learnt in a church in Cambridge, lifted it to his 


ii6 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


lips, closed his eyes and swallowed it. . . . 

Then he heard a rustling as Theo lifted his hand 
from beneath the bedclothes. 

Then the cup was carried round. . . . 

As Algy passed out behind his mother and Mary 
five minutes later, he noticed, lying on the little sil- 
ver plate, fragments of the holy food. Mr. Morti- 
mer, still in his cassock and surplice, was staying 
behind with Mr. Banister, to see, presumably, 
whether Theo was strong enough to bear a little 
reading. But before Algy, still loitering in the gal- 
lery above the hall, had reached the passage leading 
to his room, a figure in surplice, scarf and Oxford 
hood came out and began to descend the stairs car- 
rying the silver vessels. 

Theo died in his sleep that evening. Mary was 
there, helping the nurses, but no one else. They 
only found he was dead when one of the nurses hap- 
pened to touch him. 

Algy, sitting alone with his mother in her morn- 
ing-room an hour later, listened to her saying, over 
and over again, what a good boy Theo had always 
been, how pleased she was that he had received Com- 
munion and how they must all think that he was 
watching over them now. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 117 

‘‘ But my dear,’' she said tearfully, touching 
Algy’s face, your cheek is all bruised still. I am 
sure you ought to have used arnica.” 


PART II 


CHAPTER I 
(I) 

'“T^HE October term had begun as usual, and 
the streets were full of shy freshmen, superior 
second-year men and all the rest. I made a few 
new acquaintances and missed some old ones, and 
the term moved on peaceably. It was not until a 
fortnight of the end of it that I saw anything of 
Algy Banister. To tell the truth, I had completely 
forgotten him since our meeting near King’s Cross 
about three months before. I knew nothing of 
Theo’s death. But a few days after December had 
begun, at about half-past nine in the evening, just as 
I was beginning matins and lauds for next day, the 
door was opened, and Mr. Banister ” was an- 
nounced by an invisible maid beyond the screen. 
Then Algy appeared round it. 

Certainly I knew his face as soon as I saw it, but 
I had to fence a few minutes with particular deli- 
cacy before I knew anything more. He sat forward 

ii8 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


1 19 

in my green arm-chair and nervously smoked a 
cigarette, and I made general conversation as well as 
I could. I was not even sure whether he were a 
Catholic or not. He mentioned that I had asked 
him to come and see me, but that was not distinc- 
tive enough. Finally, he asked me whether I had 
got down to Brighton all right. Then I knew, and, 
I am afraid, hyprocritically, suppressed all outward 
signs of relief. 

Before he went away that evening, I learned that 
his eldest brother had died and that he himself was 
going to give up the Bar and settle down at home as 
soon as he had taken his degree, to help his father 
and learn the management of an estate. 

I thought about him for about three minutes after 
he had gone and then settled down again to matins 
and lauds. 

Christmas passed; and the Lent term began; and 
within a week of its beginning Algy turned up again. 

When a young man turns up at the beginning of a 
term, I am fairly confident that he wishes to pursue 
my acquaintance. Otherwise he would put it off till 
the last possible day and then come and say good- 
bye. I could see, too, by Algy’s bearing that he had 
something else to say. I didn’t know whether it 
might not be about the Catholic Church, so I gave 
him no help, for I hold that the first word on a sub- 


120 


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ject should, nearly always, come from the layman. 

Finally he got it out — rather clumsily, but 
bravely enough. 

I want to talk to you, if I may,” he said, strain- 
ing at his cigarette. “ I feel rather a fool and all 
that, but I don’t know whom else to talk to.” 

“ Please say exactly what you like,” I said. 

It is about all sorts of things. I don’t know 
where to begin.” 

“ Why not at the beginning ? ” 

He smiled rather feebly at that. 

‘‘Well — do you know, I think I will.” 

Then he began at the beginning. 

(Nobody need be in the least alarmed. Before I 
began a word of this book Algy gave me full leave 
to write it. He has inspected the proofs up to the 
point where he leaves its pages. He has given me 
his imprimatur, only desiring that a few details by 
which persons and places might conceivably be iden- 
tified should be altered. This has been done.) 

When he had finished, helped now and then by 
questions, I sat quite silent for a full minute. I was 
really very much astonished at his self-knowledge. 
He told me everything — about his education, his 
tastes, his people, his difficulties. It was not at all 
a confession in the technical sense; he did not even 
tell it me because I was a priest ; he simply told it me 
because he knew no one else to tell. He told me 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


I2I 


in considerable detail all that has been related in the 
first part of this book and certain other things that 
have not. The people whom he described became 
very vivid to me. (I have even ventured, in conse- 
quence, to conjecture their meditations.) 

It seemed that there were two or three points in 
particular on which he desired remarks. The first 
concerned Miss Mary Maple. (He had grown quite 
frank by now.) 

‘‘ You know, I was awfully in love with her last 
year. It was just everything; and she, I think, was 
fond of my brother. Perhaps it’s beastly of me to 
say that, but I may as well tell you what I think. 
Well; she was with us last Christmas, and, do you 
know, she was quite different. She never snubbed 
me once. She was much quieter, too. She sat with 
my mother much more, instead of coming to the bil- 
liard-room as she used. Now what do you make of 
that?” 

I made a good deal of it to myself; but I didn’t 
say much. I said I didn’t know. 

‘‘ Well, now, it’s an extraordinary thing,” said 
Algy, but I feel quite different to her. You know, 
I can’t help thinking — no ; it’s beastly of me even to 
think that.” 

'‘Yes; just so, and you can’t tell, you know,” I 
said, beginning to feel very sorry for Miss Mary 
Maple. 


122 


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“ And yet, you know,’’ said Algy, I made up to 
her last year as hard as I could, and I feel an awful 
brute now. Perhaps, she’ll think it’s because I’ve 
become eldest son and all that, and, you know, it 
isn’t that — it isn’t that.” 

He leaned forward in his intentness. 

My dear man, of course it isn’t that. I know 
that.” 

Well, but am I bound to her at all? ” 

I almost rose in the air with emphasis. 

You are not,” I said; ''you are not in the 
slightest way bound; not in the very faintest de- 
gree.” 

He looked puzzled at my vehemence. 

" Why did you say it like that? ” 

" Because I am absolutely certain of it. . . . 

Please go on.” 

He leaned back. 

" Well, that’s the first thing. But there’s this that 
comes in, too. . . . Now here I feel more of a 

fool than ever. I know it’s a rottenly stupid thing 
to say — but — but marriage seems to me now — 
well — quite impossible.” 

" I don’t think that’s necessarily stupid,” I said. 
" Sometimes — well, go on.” 

" I don’t mean in itself,” said Algy, staring at the 
red end of his cigarette, " but — but for me. It 
seems so — so futile, don’t you know. . . . And 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


123 


the odd thing is that now’s exactly the time when I 
ought to be thinking about it. My people want it, 
and — well, it’s obvious, isn’t it ? ” 

‘‘ Tell me when you first thought of it that way.” 

Oh — well — when I was a boy, you know, I 
couldn’t imagine what it was all about. Then came 
this thing with Miss Maple. But I don’t know that 
even then it was quite what other people mean by 
marriage. I can’t explain — but there is a differ- 
ence, you know. . . . And then came my 

brother’s death.” 

Well?” 

Algy tossed his cigarette into the fire, and leaned 
right back out of the lamplight. I carefully re- 
frained from looking anywhere in his direction; be- 
cause I saw that the Point was coming. 

« Well — it’s like this — I can’t put it into words, 
you know — and, anyhow, it sounds fearfully arro- 
gant and ridiculous. But it’s like this. . . 

He paused again. I said nothing. 

« Well — ever since that time it has seemed to me 
that the whole world’s perfectly mad. Here we are, 
fooling along — I told you what kind of things I’ve 
always done at home — fooling along, and making a 
lot of fuss about nothing at all — jawing and going 
out in motors and shooting. Look what a lot of 
time we spend in just keeping going — meals and 
sleeping, and so on. . . . Even clergymen 


124 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


well, I told you about Mr. Mortimer. He^s an ex- 
cellent chap — I don’t mean he’s not ; he’s a lot bet- 
ter than most. And yet — and yet — the whole 
time — ” 

Words failed him; but I saw what he was after. 

“ You mean the next world and death and so on,” 
I said softly. 

‘‘ Yes.” 

I was silent a minute or two. Of course it was, as 
he had said, all very arrogant; but he had said it 
was — and that meant a good deal. 

‘‘ Tell me how you’d arrange your life, if you had 
it all your own way.” 

Algy considered. 

“ Well,” he said, I know it’s unnatural, but it 
seems to me that I should like to live almost entirely 
alone. You see I’m not really at my ease with peo- 
ple. Being with them takes up such a lot of atten- 
tion. I know that for some people it’s not like that ; 
they marry and have families and all that, just be- 
cause they’re that sort. I’m not saying anything 
against them. But it’s not the same with me. 
Then — well, I know this sounds a silly thing to 
say — then, really and truly I want to be alone a 
great deal. It seems to me it’s just the only thing 
that matters.” 

‘‘ How would the world go on,” I interposed, “ if 
everybody did that? ” 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


125 


I saw him smile in the half-light. 

‘‘ Well, you know, everybody won’t. Isn’t that 
good enough ? ” 

Quite good enough — I only wanted to see — 
well, go on.” 

He moved uneasily in his chair. 

“ You know this isn’t just a fancy with me. . . . 
I’ve had it, in a way, for ages. I go out in the 
woods a lot alone at home. Up here, too, about 
three days a week, I take the train — please don’t 
think me an ass — out to Royston or somewhere, 
after lunch, just simply in order to be alone. (It 
was like that when we met in London, do you re- 
member?) I walk back, or bicycle, and then the 
queer thing is that I can hardly bear to go into hall 
or to speak. I’m not shy ; I’ve never been ragged ; 
it isn’t that I’m afraid of people. You see. I’m third 
year, and I’ve always got on all right. But it’s just 
that I’m so absolutely crammed with something — 
I don’t know what — that I want to be absolutely 
alone, so as to — to sort it — no, not quite that. 
Oh ! you know what I mean.” 

I nodded very softly. 

<< Yes — but can’t you tell me a little more? ” 

He drew himself up in his chair. 

“ Well, yes ; I will,” he said shortly. ‘‘ It’s this. 
,, . . It’s God.” 


126 


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A silence indeed fell then. He had told his secret ; 
and I had not a word to say. 

Outside the winter night was very still, for few 
were abroad. A tram a hundred yards away 
boomed up from St. Andrew’s Street, grew yet more 
resonant, punctuated by the horse’s hoofs, and died 
away again up the Hills Road. The clock chimed 
out its little plain song melody, telling the world that 
it was half-past ten as we count time. Over us were 
the stars and the infinite spaces. And all westwards 
of us lay the town, shuttered and lighted and 
warmed, where young men played cards and sang 
songs; and the colleges, old foundations formed in 
the Ages of Faith, where dons talked in studious 
rooms, and debating societies discussed ghosts and 
politics and passed resolutions and abolished the 
Established Church and Eight Hours’ Bills and crit- 
icized the Universe. And here in my rooms sat a 
young man, telling me that he wanted to be alone 
with God. 

My dear boy,” I said, “ forgive me for saying 
what I’m going to say; but don’t you think perhaps 
you are a little morbid? You know lots of men go 
through an odd time up here. Generally, I confess, 
it’s the other way. They find that they don’t want 
religion, and can get on perfectly well without it; 
but not all. And then, in ten years or so, whichever 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


127 


way it has been with them, they just settle down as 
before and go on quietly — ” 

He burst in. His shyness was clean gone now. 
His face was alive with emotion. 

‘‘ But that’s exactly what I’m frightened of. It’d 
be too ghastly if I went back. . . . Father Ben- 

son, don’t you understand ? I thought you’d be sure 
to. You’re a priest, and all that. Don’t you see 
that I’ve found out something now. Good Lord! 
why are people such fools? You say that lots of 
people go through a queer time — well — well — 
and in God’s name, can we tell that that isn’t their 
one great chance? . . . that they see things as 

they really are. Why isn’t twenty-two old enough ? 
And nobody lives much over eighty. . . 

I interrupted him this time. 

“ Look here ; please don’t get excited. Don’t 
think I’m against you ; I’m not. But you must tell 
me some more.” 

We talked that evening till twenty minutes to 
twelve. Then I turned him out, in order to get him 
back to Trinity before midnight. We said good- 
night at the door, and he promised to come in again 
for another talk next week. 

Then I sat down and wrote a letter, directing the 
envelope to : 


128 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


“ Christopher Dell, Esq., 

‘‘ Martin’s Farm, 

‘‘ Near Maresfield, 

Sussex.” 

(n) 

I carried about with me for the next few days a 
sensation like that of a man who has discovered a 
genius in a garret. I do not propose to write down 
all that Algy said to me during that last hour ; but it 
was one of the most astounding conversations I have 
ever had. This boy, I found, had hardly read any- 
thing and, of course, he had ideas which even I could 
see were full of blunders. Yet, at the same time, his 
knowledge of what I should call ‘‘ Divine Things ” 
was simply extraordinary. I do not profess to be a 
judge of such matters ; I take my Gospel-work sim- 
ply from the Church; but even I could see that this 
young man had gone a long way — I do not mean 
in “ dogma,” because of this he knew hardly any- 
thing at all — but in that experimental knowledge of 
which at any rate Catholics believe theological state- 
ments to be the authoritative expression. 

For example, he asked my opinion of what he 
called a very odd idea that had come to him — he 
did not remember having ever read it or heard it 
mentioned — but it was nothing else than the Law 
of Mystical Substitution. His was hardly a line of 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


129 


thought current, let us say, at Eton or Crowston ; yet 
he had it somehow. He quoted to me, oddly 
enough, in that connection, the incident of the young 
man in gaiters who had thrashed him. He told me 
that this had bewildered and shocked him for a 
time, and what had bewildered him more than 
anything else was the fact that he himself did not re- 
gret it in the slightest. I suggested — for I wished 
to test him — that he did not regret it simply be- 
cause he happened to be a gentleman. But that did 
not satisfy him in the least. He had thought of it, 
and it was not that. It was, rather, he said, a cer- 
tain knowledge that he had by his own actual pain 
and disgrace balanced to some degree the loathsome- 
ness of the young man and the shame that Sybil suf- 
fered. Her laughter in the hall, too, fitted in, he 
told me. It was that that was needed. I asked 
him how he squared that with the Protestant doc- 
trine of the Atonement; and he answered very 
sensibly. 

In fact, as I say, I was astounded. Here was a 
boy with everything against him, who seemed, liter- 
ally speaking, to have been caught up by the Super- 
natural out of a conventional family and life into a 
realm where I could not follow him at all except by 
hearsay. The end of it had seemed abrupt ; it had 
been precipitated by the week in the previous Sep- 
tember which has already been described, but, from 
9 


130 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


all that he said, I could see that it had been a-prepar- 
ing a long time. Of course, I let him see nothing of 
what I thought. I snubbed him gently half a dozen 
times. He must have thought me a very dismaying 
kind of clergyman, but he came, again and again. 
Then I began to give him books to read, not con- 
troversial, but mystical. He had “ Mother Julian 
of Norwich,’' The Ascent of Mount Carmel,” 
“ Sancta Sophia” and ‘‘Heaven Opened.” And 
then at last, a fortnight before Easter, I unmasked 
two guns, which I had been wheeling cautiously into 
position, full in his face. 

The first was the “ Penny Catechism.” 

I presented him with a copy in silence, as soon as 
he came into the room. He looked at the little pur- 
ple, shiny book with unconcealed disgust; then he 
opened it and sat down, turning the pages. 

“ What’s this all about ? ” he said. 

“ It’s the ‘ Penny Catechism,’ ” I said ; “ it’s what 
our children read. That’s why I’ve given it to you.” 

“ But I’m not a Catholic,” he said. 

“ I know you’re not ; because you haven’t the 
faintest idea what it’s all about. But will you be 
good enough to take it away, and read it slowly 
through, three or four times ? ” 

He shook his head doubtfully, pursing his lips a 
little. 

“ I’ll read it, if you want me to. But, you know, 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


131 

you’ll never make me a Catholic. Besides, I didn’t 
think — ” 

Well?” 

“ Well — I didn’t think that sort of a thing mat- 
tered much. Surely it can’t possibly matter what 
denomination you belong to, so long as — ” 

Then I fired my gun. 

I began with a discourse on Pride. I told him 
that for a young man to sit there in my chair and 
tell me, a Catholic priest and a convert, and fifteen 
years older than himself, and very much more than 
fifteen years wiser, that it couldn’t possibly matter 
what denomination one belonged to, was imperti- 
nence enough; but to say, as in effect he had done, 
to such persons as ... So-and-So and So- 
and-So, and a number more, that their step had been 
obviously unnecessary and that they would have 
done much better to stop where they were, was an 
impertinence before which my brain reeled. Finally, 
there remained the Holy Catholic Church through- 
out the world, and I mentioned a few Saints and 
Doctors whose names I thought he might conceiva- 
bly have heard, declaring with one voice that she 
was the one link of Salvation. And he sat there. 

He pointed out to me, with some shrewdness, that 
there were plenty of wise men and good outside the 
Church. 


132 


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‘‘ No doubt/’ I cried at him, “ and therefore I 
don’t dare to say that Their beliefs are obviously 
absurd. I say that I don’t believe them, and you 
are at liberty to say that you don’t believe in the 
Catholic Church, but to say more, as you did, is 
simple sheer pride.” 

He had nothing to say to that, and I proceeded. 

I should think I spoke, for twenty-five minutes ; 
he interrupted me once or twice ; but when I set be- 
fore him the idea that the Church was literally the 
Body of Christ, assumed into union with His 
Person, experiencing therefore what He experienced 
on earth and sharing in His Prerogatives of Infalli- 
bility, Indefectibility and all that flowed from them, 
he interrupted me no more. . . . 

Was it unfair? I think not. After all, for 
twenty-two years he had grown up in the protection 
of a Society whose boast is that of Free Enquiry. 
Then against what principle did he or I sin, I in 
giving him a little Free Information, and he in lis- 
tening to it ? 

He waved his hands at last. 

Enough, enough ! ” he cried. 

‘‘ Well ; be good enough to read the ‘ Penny Cate- 
chism,’ ” I said. And go to any Anglican Di- 
vine that you like. I’m not the least afraid. I only 
ask one thing — that you’ll tell me what they say.” 

Then I unmasked my second gun. 


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133 


I began by telling him about Christopher Dell, my 
friend, who had gone through fire and water, and 
come out, as the Scriptures say, into a wealthy 
place.” I concealed nothing, though I did not go 
into all the details, for, after all, I had Chris’s leave 
to use it. 

He sat dumb, looking at me. He heard the tale 
of sins, and unreality of the falling in love, and the 
rejection, and the revolt against God. Then he 
heard of Mr. Rolls, the Catholic mystic, who, by 
sheer brutality had first smashed Chris, driving him 
to the brink of suicide, and then healed him, making 
him like a little child in faith and love. But I didn’t 
tell him that Lady Brasted was the girl in the story. 

Now,” I said, I’m going to stay with Chris in 
the Easter vacation. Dick Yolland’s going to be 
there, and I’ve told Chris to keep a room for a 
friend of mine. Will you come ? ” 

Algy moistened his lips. 

‘‘ I will,” he said. ‘‘ Where does he live ? ” 

‘‘ Not ten miles from Crowston, at Maresfield.” 
“ I’ll come,” he said again. “ When? ” 

‘‘ I’m going there ten days after Easter, and I’m 
going to stop there a week. You can come when 
you like.” 

‘‘ Yes — I’ll come ; I’ll let you know. But — but 
why do you want me to come ? ” 

“ For two reasons. The first is that I want you 


134 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


to see what Grace has done, and the second I won't 
tell you." 

He looked at me a minute or two without speak- 
ing. I am sure he suspected a popish plot, and he 
was perfectly right in doing so. 

It’s no good," he said ; ‘‘ I shall never be a 
Catholic." 

“ Tell me why you think that." 

‘‘Well — Lady Brasted — I told you about her. 
If that’s what Catholics are like — ’’ 

“ Have you ever thought what she’d be if she 
wasn’t a Catholic ? " 

“ Well — she’d be like other people." 

“ Oh, Algy ! And it’s other people you’ve been 
complaining of so much ! I don’t say she isn’t con- 
ventional; but is it possible you don’t see that all 
the good that there is in her comes simply and 
solely from her religion? She does her best to 
love God and her neighbor; and that’s something 
surely." 

I gave him another little lecture on charitableness 
then. I pointed out that Lady Brasted was per- 
fectly sincere, that she took a great deal of trouble 
for the sake of her religion and that it was a far 
finer thing to believe in God and practice religion, 
even if it materialized a good deal in prieu-dieux and 
looking rapt, than not to have any religion at all, 
and indefinitely better, therefore, to have this than 


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135 


to indulge in the vulgar and insincere cant of being 
too spiritual for any human system at all. I felt 
shockingly didactic and flat-footed; but it was nec- 
essary to humble this young man, if he was to be- 
come what I thought he might perhaps be capable of 
becoming. He took it very well; he grinned, and 
he flushed once or twice. 

Finally, I begged him to remember that he was 
not yet acquainted with the Catholic Church, and 
therefore knew nothing at all of what he was talking 
about. 

When he was gone, I took out a letter of Chris’s 
and read it again. It ran as follows : 

‘‘ Martin’s Farm, Maresfield. 

''March 18. 

My dear man : Of course I shall be charmed 
to see your young man. I know nothing whatever 
about it all; but if you care to bring him. I’ll tell 
you what I think. It seems to me very odd, when 
you tell me he isn’t even a Catholic; but, after all, 
you know him and I don’t. Dick’s going to be here ; 
have you heard he’s going to be made a Mon- 
signor ? How exceedingly funny it is — ‘ Monsig- 
nor Dick ! ’ 

'' We can arrange about the other thing all right. 
Leave it to me. 


136 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


“ Oh ! yes ; tell him exactly what you like about 
me. I hope it’ll do him good. 

‘‘ Pray for me. 

“ Ever yours, 

C. D.” 

‘‘ P. S. — Pve got a pony cart at last, so you’ll be 
able to go over and say mass every day.” 

I put the letter away in my drawer, feeling more 
of a Popish Conspirator than ever. 

(hi) 

Chris Dell’s cottage at Maresfield was a very 
charming little place. It stood in a corner, rather 
off the high road, presenting only a blank wall to 
the dust of occasional cars. The cottage itself faced 
westwards, and a pleasant, fragrant little old garden 
came right up to its windows, crossed by paved 
paths, with a row of beehives at the lower end. In- 
side it was remarkably plain. There were no car- 
pets or curtains in the house at all. The boards were 
a natural dark color, polished by generations of feet. 
Right out of the central room, once a kitchen, which 
Chris had turned into a kind of a living-hall, rose a 
staircase to the first floor. The kitchen that was in 
use opened through a door with a latch in it into the 
hall, with a scullery beyond. And, on the other 
side of the hall, were two tiny parlors. Upstairs 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


137 


were four moderate-sized bedrooms, each with its 
bed partitioned off. The servants’ rooms — for a 
housekeeper and a boy — were over the kitchen and 
scullery and communicated directly with them by a 
small staircase of their own which Chris had erected. 

He seemed to have a succession of friends always 
staying with him, but these friends had to conform 
very rigorously to the rules of the house. Chris 
himself walked over to hear mass every morning at 
Crawley. He took no breakfast, and, even when he 
returned, was invisible till lunch at one o’clock. In 
the afternoon he entertained any one who might be 
staying with him by a walk or bicycle ride, and after 
tea vanished again upstairs. Dinner was at half-past 
eight, and from then till eleven everybody sat in the 
hall or one of the parlors. At eleven Chris went 
upstairs. 

It was an extremely simple life, but to people who 
liked it, extremely pleasant. We were given real 
liberty. If one was sulky or meditative, Chris per- 
fectly understood, and one walked alone. I used to 
go down there fairly often if I had something par- 
ticular I wanted to finish in peace — or even some- 
times to '' make my soul.” 

And as for Chris himself — 

His previous history has been told in the Senti- 
mentalists ” ;* I had sketched it to Algy. The old 

* This is not intended as an advertisement, but as a relation 
of fact. 


138 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


Catholic, John Rolls, on dying five years before the 
present date, had continued by a bequest an income 
of two hundred pounds a year for the benefit of his 
friend, and Chris, ever since his return from Italy, 
five years before that, had lived this queer, lonely 
life at Maresfield. It is difficult to describe exactly 
what he did. Articles appeared from time to time, 
and an occasional book, very carefully written, bear- 
ing his name. They did not cause a blinding sensa- 
tion, but his readers were quite constant and quite 
devoted. I have heard persuasive and quiet people 
speak of Christopher Dell with an enthusiasm which 
I dare not quote. His life was of a kind that strenu- 
ous workers would describe as slothful, and fussy 
people as dull; but it was neither. He slept six 
hours every night; his meals occupied him an hour 
and a half, and his recreations three. And all the 
rest of the time he was engaged in his room. . . . 

And he did not care a straw what people thought of 
him. 

I arrived there in Lent week, about four o’clock 
on the Wednesday afternoon, to hear from the boy 
that Mr. Dell and Father Yolland were in the vil- 
lage ; and I had hardly unpacked my things upstairs 
before I heard their voices in the garden. I rushed 
downstairs. 

It was extraordinarily pleasant to see them again. 


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139 


Chris rang for tea and sat down opposite to me 
where I could see him in the full light from the 
little leaded window. He was a little grayer, I 
thought, and I told him so. He was streaked on the 
temples and in his short, pointed beard. 

‘‘ I am delighted to hear it,’’ he said. ‘‘ It is more 
in keeping with the Mysterious Recluse business 
which is supposed to have been my pose for the last 
ten years. I think I shall wear a little velvet skull- 
cap and cultivate a wan smile.” 

I turned to Dick. 

Where is your purple, Monsignor? ” 

Don’t be a funny ass,” said Dick. 

He, too, was a little older, as was but right. He 
was the Rector of a big London mission now and, 
I was pleased to observe, showed a suspicion of 
stoutness. This also was in keeping. Otherwise he 
was as before, a plain man, rather like an Irish ter- 
rier, with stiff sandy hair and a snub nose. 

Then we settled down and talked extremely fast 
for a very long time. I heard bits of news, and 
gave other bits. It would have been of no interest 
to any one else. Finally, Chris asked me when Algy 
was coming. I told him that the young man was 
going to be brought over in a motor in time for 
dinner. 

That reminds me,” said Dick. I’ve got my 
aunt’s motor here, and her chauffeur, all at her ex- 


140 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


pense. She’s gone to Lourdes for a fortnight. 
They’re put up in the village.” 

** And that reminds me,” said Chris. “ We’re 
going to use Dick’s motor for our little affair. It 
holds five, you know.” 

Chris went upstairs at six o’clock, and I turned 
immediately to Dick. 

‘‘Well?” I said. 

Dick waved his hands. 

“ My dear man, he’s extraordinary. And those 
donkeys all told me that he was an incurable, and 
that once a poseur always a poseur. It’s a black lie.” 

“ Just the same then? ” 

“ Just the same for ten years — ever since his 
smash. He does a little writing, you know, and 
gets poor beggars down here to reconsider them- 
selves, and talks to them a bit, and they go back sane. 
It’s what I said. It’s just old Roll’s mantle de- 
scended upon him. I know nobody else in the least 
like him.” 

I mused a minute or two. 

“He’s told you about Algy Banister?” I asked. 

Dick nodded. 

“Well; I tell you I feel like Columbus. If that 
boy isn’t a born Contemplative, I’ve never heard 
of such a thing. It’s like finding a lion in your gar- 
den. And if you only knew what he’s had against 
him!” 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


141 

“ Why have you got him here ? 

‘‘ Why, to consult a specialist — what else ? ’’ 

‘‘ I supposed it was that,’’ murmured Dick. 

We both had a little office to say, so we wandered 
out into the garden presently and were soon at it, 
pacing up and down parallel paths, while the sun 
sank through the trees westwards, and the sky grew 
luminous and amber. I must confess that I suffered 
distractions, yet the peace of the place sank deeper 
every minute. The mellow, old-fashioned spring 
flowers, prisoned in their box hedges, began to doze ; 
beyond the hedge in the meadow I could see the rab- 
bits stealing out ; yet the heart of the peace was not 
physical ; that I knew very well. It was rather that 
a man lived here who generated it, for he had found 
the way to it through tribulation. It was all Chris. 
So I am afraid I thought a good deal about him. 
Even Algy faded, and as for Dick, he was to me 
during that hour nothing but a stoutish, kindly 
clergyman saying his prayers a dozen yards away. 
It was Chris to whom my thoughts wandered, that 
vivid, virile, black-eyed, bearded man, who lived a 
life that to most sane persons’ minds must have 
seemed utterly without point or color. Yet it was 
not that he had not known these things. Yet here 
he lived, entirely content and serene, issuing queer 
books that on some hearts fell as harmless as 


142 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


blunted arrows, and on others winged and pointed 
with flame, entertaining singular friends in his plain 
little house, living alone in his own room with the 
door locked for nineteen hours out of the twenty- 
four, losing his life to all appearances and, to his own 
mind at least, for the first time finding it. 

As the village clock a hundred yards away beat 
out the hour of seven, across the boom came a throb- 
bing : it grew louder and stopped, and I went down 
the flagged path to welcome Algy. 


CHAPTER II 


(I) 

said Algy, an hour later, as we still sat 
over the dinner-table. “ Mad. I am very 
sorry if you think me a conceited ass; but that is 
what I think.’’ 

He was a little flushed and excited with talk, for 
Chris was an admirable conversationalist and had 
succeeded, with remarkable skill, in making this 
young man feel at his ease with three Papists. It 
was the world in general and his own family in par- 
ticular, whom Algy was calling mad just now. 

Chris leaned back out of the full candlelight, smil- 
ing visibly. 

You do think so, Mr. Dell? ” 

Well,” drawled Chris, ‘‘ not exactly conceited, 
but, shall we say, a little narrow-minded ? ” 

Algy burst out again, recounting his experiences 
in the smoking-room at home. He pretended to a 
bewildered humility at the antics of his people. 

Surely it isn’t I who am narrow-minded ? ” he 
cried ; and I saw that the accusation had stung. 

“ My dear chap,” said Chris, ‘‘ you see, I don’t 

143 


144 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


know your people, but what I do know is that you 
haven’t any kind of business to say that anybody is 
narrow-minded just because he doesn’t agree with 
your conception of the universe. Further, I think 
that it is you who are narrow-minded in not think- 
ing it possible that they may have some function 
too.” 

Algy ground out his cigarette end in his coffee 
saucer. (I had been astonished during the last hour 
at the dinner Chris had provided. There had been 
three covers with cheese and fruit. Usually his 
friends were confined to one course, fruit and no 
coffee.) 

‘‘ It is this,” said Algy again, more deliberately. 
‘‘ I imagine we were sent into the world to fulfill 
some end. I don’t see any end fulfilled by the kind 
of life that most people live. For myself — ” 

Chris leaned forward swiftly. 

‘‘ Ah ! yes. Speak for yourself,” he said. 

Algy fell into confusion. He stammered a sen- 
tence or two about finding out what the end was, and 
then pursuing it. All that he was certain of was 
that conventional life did not touch it. 

‘‘ Then you’re not certain of anything else yet? ” 
pursued Chris relentlessly. 

Algy glanced at me and away again. I know per- 
fectly what he meant. It was that he had a kind of 
ideal which it was impossible to state in mixed com- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


145 


pany, and I agreed with him. It seemed to me that 
Chris was being rather tiresome and indelicate. 

Chris leaned back once more, so far back that 
the shaded candles threw no light on his face. All 
that I could see was the glitter of his black eyes and 
white teeth. He spoke at first quietly, but after- 
wards with an extraordinary kind of intensity, and 
he delivered such a speech as I had never heard from 
him before. 

I am not going to attempt to reproduce it here; 
it would not be decent. All that I know is that I 
sat perfectly still and never once glanced at either of 
the other two. I only looked now and again at 
Chris. 

Briefly its point was this: That Almighty God 
had a scheme to work out of which it was absurd 
and profane for us to judge. Even Nature showed 
that ; there were ten thousand mysteries of pain and 
sin which no religion worthy of the name even at- 
tempted to solve. He gave away with one hand all 
that sentimental scientists asked ; he granted that the 
world was, apparently, full of irremediable wrong; 
he flung it down before himself and us and said that 
he had no answer. From that he deduced that we, 
obviously, were not responsible for anything except 
our own affairs and that for those we were respons- 
ible. Therefore, let Algy Banister hold his tongue 
about his people! They might have functions of 
10 


146 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


which he had no conception — at any rate it was 
their affair, not his. 

What did matter then was Vocation. It was the 
only thing that did matter. Vocation did not mean 
I that one life was, necessarily, better than another. 
It did not mean that other lives were necessarily in- 
sane. The only insanity lay in neglecting first to 
discover Vocation or, secondly, in neglecting it. 

That, then, was Algy Banister’s business as it 
was also Christopher Dell’s for Christopher Dell, 
and that of these reverend fathers for these reverend 
fathers. 

He proceeded to say some things about Almighty 
God and the soul that somehow made me feel extraor- 
dinarily small and unimportant — which, I hold, is 
always a wholesome feeling — and I have no doubt 
that he made Algy feel small to. (Dick, I don’t 
befieve, ever feels anything else, though he does not 
look it. ) And he said it all with startling eloquence. 

He said nothing about his own past, as most peo- 
ple would have done (an action which I think to 
be as offensive as undressing in public to exhibit 
wounds), and he said nothing whatever that could 
possibly flatter anybody that was present. In fact, 
for the first time since Algy’s arrival he hinted at 
that young man’s youth and inexperience, and finally 
ended by a sentence or two that had the effect of 
making not only ourselves but the world about us, 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


147 


the table at which we sat, the rinds of orange peel on 
our plates and the fragrance of Algy’s perished 
cigarette seem simultaneously rather less than noth- 
ing and rather more than everything — a truth 
which, to my mind, is both the beginning and the end 
of wisdom. I do not know how he did it ; it was his 
air, his slight gestures, the modulations of his voice, 
fully as much as his words. 

Altogether it was an extraordinary little speech. 

Dick broke the silence that followed, characteris- 
tically. He sneezed twice, loudly, and the tension 
broke. 

We dispersed somehow; that is to say that Chris 
and Dick drifted presently away into one of the par- 
lors, and Algy and I remained at the table. 

Almost immediately, however, he pushed his chair 
back, stood up and began to walk restlessly up and 
down the little room. 

I watched him closely — the glimmer of his white 
shirt and the look on his face when he came into 
the candlelight; for I could see that my treatment 
had begun to tell. The puzzled look I had noticed 
in his eyes at our first meeting, and which had begun 
to go lately, had now deepened again. He seemed 
preoccupied. There was also about his air a kind 
of troubled energy that I had not seen before. He 
had the appearance of a man suddenly facing an 


148 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


urgent problem. His hands were behind his back as 
he walked, his head was carried high, and he hardly 
seemed aware of my presence. 

I knew perfectly what was troubling him ; it was 
the strangeness of finding that there were other peo- 
ple in the world who had somehow got into the same 
region as himself. He had thought that he had dis- 
covered a new country, silent, mysterious and un- 
populated, and behold! here was Christopher Dell, 
an old inhabitant of it all the while, knowing all 
about it, perfectly familiar with what he himself had 
thought to be unexplored woods and paths. I have 
seen that bewilderment before, pretty often. 

So I observed Algy closely, waiting humbly upon 
his restlessness, watching, if I may say so^ without 
pride, the movements of his mind as one may watch 
the activity within a glass bee-hive. Its inmates are 
free, yet they meet invariable laws with invariable 
instincts. 

Algy was the first to speak, suddenly standing 
still opposite me. 

Good Lord ! ’’ he said. ‘‘ And that’s Mr. Dell.” 

‘‘ That’s Mr. Dell,” I said. 

Well — but — I don’t understand. 

Why does he go on living here if he feels like that ? 
If I felt all that I’d . . . I’d. . . .” 

‘‘ Well, what would you do? ” 

Algy began to walk up and down again. I looked 


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149 


at him, at his white shirt-front in the dusk, his high 
collar and his boyish, troubled face. 

“ It’s exactly what I feel myself,” he said ; '' only 
I’ve never put it into words.” 

“ Well, why don’t you do whatever it is that you 
would do ? ” I asked. 

‘‘ Because I don’t know what it is,” he snapped. 
“ I only know — ” 

“ My dear chap,” I said, “ hasn’t it yet dawned on 
you that Chris Dell has found his Vocation? It’s to 
live here, and to do his little jobs, and say his pray- 
ers. It doesn’t matter in the slightest what we do, so 
long as we’ve got to do it.” 

He said nothing. 

And what you’ve got to do,” I went on, is to 
find out yours. You won’t find it all in a minute. 
Don’t be alarmed. Everybody who thinks at all 
goes through what you are going through.” 

They don’t,” he said fiercely. They just do 
what comes.” 

And that’s probably the very thing for them ; it 
certainly is if they honestly think so.” 

Algy again made no answer, and then, rather 
rudely I thought, he strolled off after the others, and 
I was left meditating. 

My meditations comprised a number of subjects, 
but the principal of them was a profound satisfaction 
with myself for having brought Algy down here. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


150 

Chris was exactly the man for him. Algy was a 
Protestant layman, and therefore a priest’s advice 
must seem always slightly tainted by professional- 
ism, since, oddly enough, theology seems the one 
subject in which proficiency is supposed to create 
bias rather than insight — and Chris was a layman 
too. And Chris was not in the least an ecclesias- 
tical layman; on the contrary, he was obviously a 
real, though eccentric, man of the world. He had 
not had the slightest air of preaching just now. He 
had carried himself throughout in the manner of a 
man who is simply and entirely interested in his sub- 
ject. He had talked as he might have talked on 
botany if he had a passion for that. 

Further, I thanked my stars in that I saw Chris 
would shrink at nothing. He had got his scalpel in 
the right place at the first attempt — which was in 
the very middle of Algy’s pride — yet without caus- 
ing more pain than was necessary, and I perceived 
that if the saw had to be substituted it would pres- 
ently be at work. 

So I sat there and considered, listening to the 
voices in the parlor, until the door suddenly opened, 
and I heard Chris’s voice very clear and sharp : 

‘‘All right, then; that’s settled. We’ll start at 
twelve and take lunch.” 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


151 


(II) 

Dick's aunt’s motor was a Humber, very smooth- 
running, very swift and very comfortable. The 
chauffeur was a man with a clean-shaven, sardonic 
face like a mephistophelean mask, who fell into a 
kind of trance so soon as he got his hands on the 
wheel and appeared to come up out of depths of 
contemplation when he was spoken to. By twelve 
we were started. 

We had passed a most uneventful morning. All 
four of us went over to Crawley for mass, and Dick 
and I occupied adjacent altars. Chris and Algy re- 
mained at the end of the church. It was the first 
time Algy had ever heard mass, he told me some 
weeks later. We passed the hours till twelve mostly 
apart. Chris and I in our respective rooms. Once 
I looked out of the window and saw Algy with his 
hands behind his back going up and down the 
flagged path at the end of the little garden. 

In the motor I was put beside the chauffeur, and 
the other three sat behind; so I did not have the 
advantage of their company. I was glad of that, for 
I was thinking steadily and swiftly, watching images 
pass before me, calculating possibilities, rehearsing 
conversations, hearing only the murmur of talk be- 
hind, the steady rush of the gear, and seeing the 
white road, splitting like a ribbon before the painted 


152 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


snout of the machine, and the spring-lit fields, uphill 
and down dale, reeling to right and left. 

Sussex is really an ideal country for such an ex- 
pedition. It has all the necessary elements of tran- 
quil interest, pleasing domestic villages to skim 
through, charming dips and hills to diversify the 
view and, now and again far away, the suggestive- 
ness of high, naked Downs against the sky. The 
spring was in full crescendo; the high banks were 
crowded with flowers, a pleasant west-wind blew in 
our faces, the air was quick with larks; there was 
everywhere the scent and sound of noisy life. 

I forget our route ; once, I know, far away to the 
right, I saw a line of buildings on a hill and heard 
“ Hayward’s Heath ” mentioned behind ; but for 
the most part I was in that meditative daze in which 
the chauffeur was a proficient and perceived nothing 
between the minutest details of physical vision and 
the large topics on which I was internally engaged. 
After nearly two hours’ running, Chris suddenly 
thrust his head from behind almost into my ear. 

Lunch,” he said. I think we might stop in a 
few minutes. What about that hill up there? ” 

I assented with a start. We were running along 
on the side of some long promontory of the Downs, 
with rich, flat country on our right, pricked here and 
there by high-shouldered little churches, set with 
roofs among the opening trees, and the bare, crisp- 


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153 


grassed turf rising like tumbled old velvet up to the 
sky on our left. There was the sense of huge 
spaces about us, wider and more deep than ever 
shows itself in the fen-country where I live, since 
here and there the earth rises into a kind of compe- 
tition with the sky and gives a measure by which 
distance may be judged, while in the fens it lies hope- 
lessly vanquished, flat beneath an overpowering 
dome. This was certainly a place to lunch and lie 
on the back and stare up into the monstrous, tower- 
ing, cloud-flecked vault. 

The motor wheeled to the left, grumbled a little 
over the broken road, turned again to the right, 
sped softly and heavingly over springy turf and slid 
down into motionlessness. 

It was a little while before we found an entirely 
suitable place; but at last we found it, under the 
shelter of a high bank, convenient to the back, look- 
ing, straight out northwards on to the swelling, lux- 
uriant country that somehow had the air of an 
academy picture. It was exquisitively arrayed. 
The ground fell away almost precipitously at our 
feet straight down into the trees, diversified by wind- 
swept gorse ; beyond began the flat country, a huddle 
of fields, copses, villages, stretching away up 
through shades of green, blue and peacock, into the 
intense violet of the horizon. Here, too, the larks 
were at the height of their singing. Two hundred 


154 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


yards away, like a child’s painted toy dropped from 
heaven, rested the strangely incongruous motor with 
the sardonic chauffeur fumbling for food under the 
seat. I caught the flash of paper as I undid my own 
sandwiches. 

Swift motion through the air always produces in 
me a kind of stupidity, or perhaps it may be the 
supreme sanity. I am not sure. At any rate, ev- 
erything seemed to me rather unreal. When I was 
able to stand off from myself, all this made a very 
pleasant experience — we four on the breezy down, 
each with his packet and bottle, with that immense 
view and vital air to soothe and enliven us. But I 
have only the most disconnected ideas as to what we 
talked about. Once I think Chris and Dick quar- 
relled as to our exact position. A map was pro- 
duced and pinned down by stones, then it was 
snatched at and torn; but even now I forget what 
the point was. Algy said a little later that it was 
almost impossible to flick a cork off a table if you 
walked up to it with outstretched arm — unless you 
knew the trick. Dick said he would undertake to 
do it three times out of four, and a bet of fourpence 
was entered on Algy’s cuff, a penny for each at- 
tempt. I said that I believed I had just caught 
meningitis, since I felt a strange pressure on the top 
of my head. And so on. It was poor silly stuff, 
not at all like our high communings of the evening 


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155 


before. Finally, we played an elaborate game with 
corks, of which I entirely forget the rules. The 
only point that I remember was that we all flatly 
contradicted Dick who was the master of the revels, 
and who claimed with some pathos to know what 
the rules were, since he had himself invented them. 

Then Algy lit a cigarette with a motor-fuse that 
filled the air with ' sickening sweetness. We ex- 
cavated a grave, buried the paper and string and 
fuse and stood up, stretching. The moment had 
come. 

Now Chris insisted on this, that no one but Algy 
himself should introduce the subject. We had 
made it possible, he said! it was our part to bring 
him to what might prove to be Pisgah, and there 
we must leave it. Whatever happened, he declared, 
would not be in the least final. He was not super- 
stitious, but since he did happen to believe that Prov- 
idence actually controlled details, it was but reason- 
able to allow Him to do so at one or two points. 
If Algy asked his question — well, that would prove 
nothing; it would be no more than the faintest 
whisper of encouragement. If he did not ask the 
question — again it would not be in the least final ; 
only it would show that this particular suggestion 
was not the way to be pursued any further. I do 
not say that I altogether agreed with Chris. It 


156 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


seemed to me rather fortuitous, but I had known 
him manage matters before now with a very remark- 
able skill. After all, it was like the throwing up 
of one feather ; it might at least be taken to indicate 
the set of the breeze at that instant. 

Algy stood, stretching himself with clawing 
hands, clear against the sky, on a little hummock of 
ground to my left, a figure dramatic in more than 
the artistic sense. Chris, close beside me, was clink- 
ing bottles together. Dick was still on his back a 
little down the slope, chewing grass. I must con- 
fess that my heart began to quicken a little. 

Algy finished his long stretch, and relaxed sud- 
denly. 

I say, what’s that ? ” he said, nodding out in 
the direction of a long line of buildings pricked by 
a tall spire scarcely visible half a dozen miles away. 

(m) 

He had said it, and I could not resist a glance at 
Chris. The clinking still continued for a moment or 
two, and not the faintest emotion was perceptible on 
his face. 

** What’s that place ? ” asked Algy again. Is it 
a lunatic asylum ? ” 

Chris stood up. 

‘‘Which place?” 

Algy pointed. 


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157 


Oh — that’s the Carthusian monastery.” 

Carthusian? What’s that? ” 

‘‘ They’re Contemplatives,” said Chris deliber- 
ately. ‘‘ They don’t preach or write, or go out at 
all, except once a week for a walk.” 

“ Eh?” 

They’re Contemplatives,” said Chris again, with 
his hands in the pockets of his jacket. 

“ Do you mean to say — do you mean to say — ? 
Well, what do they do, then? ” 

“ Each of them has a cell, with three or four 
rooms, a wood shed and a garden. They have a 
church where they meet for offices and mass three 
times a day. They have one good meal in the day. 
They say the night-office from about eleven till one 
every night. The rest of the time, except when 
they sleep, they do their best to remain in the state 
of prayer.” 

Algy looked at Chris sideways. His lips were 
parted, and his eyes had an odd, doubtful look in 
them. Chris spoke as unemotionally as if reading 
from a guide-book. 

‘‘But what’s the object?” he said suddenly. 

“ Well the idea is that the real thing that matters 
is the inner life. You know, there’s a good deal to 
be said for that, really.’’ 

“ Go on, please.” 

“There’s not much else to say. For exercise 


158 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


they cut wood or dig in the garden. There are 
both lay brothers and priests there. They mortify 
themselves continually — 

‘‘Mortify? How do you mean?’’ 

“ Well, they scourge themselves. They hardly 
ever speak. They never touch meat. They are 
under absolute obedience.” 

“ Scourge themselves ? ” 

“ Why not?” 

“ But why ? ... Is it really true ? I 

thought that was all bunkum.” He spoke with 
startled concern. 

Chris drew a breath. 

“ My dear chap, that’s too big a question. It’s 
because of sin. Our Lord was scourged, you 
see.” 

There was dead silence. I glanced at Dick and 
saw that that priest was lying perfectly still in the 
warm sunshine, but a grass-stalk no longer pro- 
truded from his mouth. 

Algy stared out again at the white line and the 
squat tower beyond the trees. 

“ How many are there ? ” he said suddenly. 

“ The last time I was there, there were about a 
hundred and fifty. Some French Fathers had 
joined them.” 

“ You’ve been there! ” 

“ Five years ago I tried my vocation there.” 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


1 59 

Algy turned on him full. I could see that he was 
pale with excitement. 

“You’ve been there, you!” 

“ I was there for about eight months.” 

“ What happened ? ” 

“ I was told I had no vocation.” 

Chris was looking at him now, too ; and for a mo- 
ment I could see that each was studying the other 
in a kind of wonder. I felt extremely small and 
unimportant. Far overhead poured out a torrent 
of ecstatic song from a bubbling heart of bird-life, 
and down here two men looked at one another with 
a House of Contemplatives before them. 

“ Will you tell me about it? ” said Algy softly. 

“ I will tell you anything you wish to hear, but 
not now.” 

Once more Dick broke the tension. 

“ I say, you chaps; let’s be getting on again.” 

To this day I do not know whether this remark of 
Dick’s was simple innocence or the most superb art. 
I have never asked him. It was like his sneeze the 
night before. All I know is that what the world 
calls sanity rushed upon us again with its kindly em- 
brace. I stood up perfectly natural, and made a re- 
mark about the chauffeur. Chris stooped and gath- 
ered up his bottles. Dick rolled to his feet, and 
Algy took out his cigarette case. 

Our journey home was completely uneventful. 


i6o THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


Dick was put in front, and I took his place with the 
other two. We talked of this and that and the 
other. Once a small boy, on seeing us unexpect- 
edly whisk round the corner upon him, crouched 
against railings with clenched hands and squealed 
like a terrified mouse. Once I observed with inter- 
est a colony of rooks in the high trees overhead busy 
on an exceedingly Active Life with sticks and 
straws. As we went, the evening light drew level 
behind us, the flitting tree-stems and the rich pas- 
tures were bathed in gold, a little church issued its 
brazen summons for evening prayer, and I noticed 
a clergyman accompanied by his wife emerge from 
the vicarage gate. 

And so^he panorama passed, and we sat on pad- 
ded cushions and watched it. 

I do not quite know what was the conclusion of 
my meditations, or even if I arrived at any at all. 
I made remarks now and then, but they were no 
more than floating sticks on my stream of thought. 
All kinds of reflections passed before me. 

There was first a kind of wonder as to whether 
we were at all superstitious, and next a doubt as to 
whether we were not too managing. The manag- 
ing element was represented, it seemed to me, by 
our careful plot to bring Algy within range of St. 
Hugh's, Parkminster, and superstition by the cu- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS i6i 


rious fulfillment of our expectation that he would put 
his question. It had been Chris’s plan, and he had 
said most emphatically that it would prove nothing 
either way. It is an extraordinarily difficult prob- 
lem as to how much one must interfere and how far 
refrain. Certainly I should not have proposed such 
a plan myself. 

And, in any case, were we not putting the cart a 
very long way in front of the horse ? This boy was 
not even a Catholic! Certainly he had said some 
remarkable things to me at Cambridge, but boys 
do say remarkable things. The only significant 
point about Algy was the fact that he did not seem 
ever to have had any opportunity of learning them. 
Besides, they did not sound second-hand. That was 
at least something ; and it had made a strong enough 
impression on my mind to cause me to arrange this 
visit to Chris, a thing I do not do once in a twelve- 
month. 

But, again, was it in the least fair ? Here was 
this boy, obviously romantic and impressionable, 
obviously out of touch with his world. Was it 
fair to confront him suddenly with the most 
amazing product of the human race, a Contem- 
plative House? (for I had no sort of doubt any 
longer that he would ask to go over and see it). I 
argued this once more with myself. It was true that 

he was impressionable, but God had made him so, 
11 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


162 


and therefore, since he must always be taking in im- 
pressions, why should he not have all sorts presented 
to him? In no sense were we compelling him. 
The world had had twenty-two years’ unlimited op- 
portunities of influencing him, and twenty-two years 
is a good slice out of life. Was it so unfair, then, 
to let him -have a glimpse of another side, of an 
objective fact to meet his subjective desires? Of 
course, if the Contemplative Life were an illusion, a 
morbid and artificial dream, an outraging of the 
nature that Providence intends us all to develop to 
the full, why then all these objections would hold. 
But you must please remember that I am perfectly 
convinced of the precise opposite. Very well, then. 
It was a matter of Vocation. It was Vocation; 
that, and nothing else. The only question was, 
Had Algy got it? 

I was so deep in self-contradiction and wonder 
and pity that I ceased presently to attend any more 
to the other two. I was sitting in the corner with 
Algy next me, and heard their voices only as in 
a dream. 

Suddenly Chris leant over and touched me. 

“ Asleep ! ” he said. 

I jumped. 

“ Certainly, not.” 

“Well, then, are you fit for another to-morrow? 
Mr. Banister wants to go over to St. Hugh’s.” 


CHAPTER III 


(I) 

TV/TY drowsiness was partly explained on the fol- 
lowing morning; for during the night the 
clouds had consolidated somewhat into a kind of 
breathless, motionless, overhead haze, and the brisk 
air of the previous day had settled down into itself 
like stagnant water. It promised to be one of those 
still, electric, ominous days that occasionally fall in 
spring as summer heats begin to develop. There 
might be thunder, or there might not. 

We were all rather silent that morning, and I 
suppose we were all thinking of the same thing. At 
any rate, about eleven oYlock, Dick came out to me 
as I paced the garden. He took me by the arm. 

Look here,” he said, I’m thoroughly uncom- 
fortable.” 

It was a relief to me to hear that some one else 
was suffering. 

‘‘What business is it of ours? ” he went on, be- 
ginning to walk with me. “ It’s a real plot, and 
I’m not at all sure that it’s fair.” 

“ Where’s the unfairness ? ” 

“ Besides, it’s perfectly mad,” he said, ignoring 
my question. “ Why, he’s not a Catholic. He’s a 


i 64 the conventionalists 


romantic young ass who doesn’t know anything.” 

“Where’s the unfairness?” I repeated. 

“ It’s playing with fire.” 

I summoned my resolution. 

“ Look here, Dick. You’re a Catholic and a 
priest. Therefore you believe, I imagine, that God 
has control of details. You also believe that God 
acts through men. Very well, then; I ask you 
again. Where’s the unfairness?” 

Lie made a demurring sound as he walked in slow 
step with me, staring uneasily at the path. I went 
on, unflinching. 

“ And, as you say, he’s not even a Catholic. 
Then there’s one more obstacle to all this coming to 
anything. I say again, isn’t it simply stupendously 
unlikely? He’s first got to be a Catholic; then he’s 
got his home-duties — he’s eldest son, you know. 
Then, even if he has something that may conceiv- 
ably resemble a Vocation — and, after all, you 
know, that’s extraordinarily unlikely ; the only 
signs are some of the things he said to me, and, as 
you say, he’s a romantic young ass — but even if 
he has a drawing towards this, there are all the ex- 
terior obstacles to be overcome. Then, even if these 
are overcome, even if his desire comes to anything, 
and persists, he’s got to be accepted. Then there’s 
his Postulary; do you know that at least half who 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 165 


get even as far as that, leave after a week? Then 
there’s his Novitiate — that’s a year; then there 
are the simple vows, and that’s four years. My 
good man, you’re simply mad.” 

We walked in silence. 

Then I made one more appeal to my own com- 
mon-sense and his own. 

‘‘ Look here,” I said. ‘‘ It’s we who are the ro- 
mantic asses. Why on earth can’t you take it sim- 
ply? He wants to see St. Hugh’s. And we’re go- 
ing over by motor to see it. What’s the matter 
with that ? ” 

I didn’t like the coincidence yesterday,” he said 
slowly. 

“ My good man, you must confess that we made 
that coincidence extremely probable! Honestly, I 
don’t see how he could have helped asking what the 
big building was. It’s perfectly natural. Remem- 
ber, at first he thought it a lunatic asylum. That’s 
very much what most people continue to think it.” 

“ Do you really think it was natural ? ” 

‘‘Dick, you’re a fool. If it isn’t natural, why 
then, I suppose it was supernatural, and isn’t that 
good enough? What more do you want? Either 
it’s the result of our machinations, in which case it 
won’t come to anything, or else it’s God’s Provi- 
dence, and in that case — 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


1 66 


I pressed his arm suddenly; for through the gar- 
den-gate ten yards away came Algy, up from the 
village. 

He looked very youthful and secular as he came 
towards us, in a flat cloth cap, short jacket, trous- 
ers and brown boots. Anything less mystical and 
Contemplative I have never set eyes oh. He was 
smoking a briar-pipe with a cheerful and brisk air. 

By George, I thought I was late,’’ he said. “ Is 
it eleven-thirty or twelve that we start ? ” 

I told him twelve, as he turned to walk with us. 

‘‘ How far’s the place ? ” 

“We shall get there about two. We’re to lunch 
on the way, Chris says.” 

“ Right. Is it a big place? ” 

“ It’s the biggest cloister in the world.” 

“ Really, you’re ragging.” 

“ Indeed I’m not. It’s a mile round.” 

“ Good Lord ! Why does nobody ever hear of 
it, then? ” 

“ Well — Carthusians don’t exactly advertise, 
you know.” 

He was silent a moment. 

“ I say ; I’d no idea Mr. Dell had ever been there.” 

“ Oh, yes.” 

Then Algy stopped dead. 

“ By George, I forgot. He asked me to go and 
see him at half-past.” 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 167 


He hurried into the house. 

I waited till the door had shut. 

Well? ” I said. “ Doesn’t that reassure you? ’’ 
Not at all. It’s just that kind of man who does 
go in. They’re nearly always about twenty, and 
they’re always cheerful.” 

Oh ! Dick, you’re hopeless,” I said. 

I don’t know at all what Chris said to Algy dur- 
ing that half-hour, but the boy did seem a trifle sub- 
dued as we climbed into the motor a minute or two 
after twelve. I suppose that it was then that Chris 
fulfilled his promise of telling him something more 
about the Carthusians. Algy brought with him a 
small, green, faded book, and a few minutes after 
we started I leaned back from my place in front and 
asked the loan of it. 

It proved to be an English translation of a French 
book by a Carthusian describing the contemplative 
life, entitled “ The Monastery of the Grande Char- 
treuse ” ; it was bound in gray-blue paper, published 
oy Messrs. Burns and Oates, and bore on its out- 
side a medallion of a cross surmounting a globe sur- 
rounded by six stars, with the inscription, stat 

CRUX VOLVITUR ORBIS. 

Then I opened it and began to read. 

I was really startled when at last I was tapped on 
the shoulder. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


1 68 


‘‘ Lunch,” announced Chris. 

I was just drawing near to the end of the book — 
I had been reading for over an hour as we slid and 
throbbed through the country lanes — and while 
the others got the things out, I still walked up and 
down on the grass by the side of the road, finishing 
it to myself. It was an extraordinarily fascinating 
little book, fascinating from its naked simplicity. 
It did not tell me anything I did n©t know before. 
The printed words were rather as a grave, austere 
voice telling me platitudes of a startling origi- 
nality. 

Even as I ate, sitting on a stile, the book lay on 
the foot-rest by my side, and as soon as I had done 
I opened it once more. 

Look here,” I said. Just listen to this. Di- 
onysius says — ” 

“ Kindly put that away,” said Chris. 

But just listen — ” 

‘‘We will not listen; we are out of doors. Look 
about you instead. You haven't said a word since 
we started.” 

I obeyed, but there was not much to look at. We 
had halted in a hollow this time, at the bottom of a 
deep pit. On either side the hills rose up. The 
horizon was not a quarter of a mile away in any 
direction, and everywhere were woods, breaking out 
into the young green of spring. But the clouds 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 169 


were gathering overhead. That ominous stillness 
lay over us as it had done all the morning. 

Perhaps it still affected me, for I had still noth- 
ing to say. The other three talked in low voices; 
the chauffeur’s head could be seen over the motor 
fifty yards away as he ate his meal. My head was 
still full of the book, of its praise of silence and soli- 
tude, of its extraordinarily confident claim that in 
these were to be found such experiences of the ulti- 
mate Reality as the noisy, superficial world knows 
nothing of. Again, as yesterday, only even more 
strongly, all things that I looked upon seemed little 
more than a painted scene. Yes; there was a carpet 
of bluebells flinging its fringe up to the hedge op- 
posite, and stretching for an unknown distance into 
the crowding woods; a chuckling little runnel of 
water was at my feet, and a fragment of paper hung 
there, below the lip, caught in the grasses, and here 
were three men, close to me, with faces and bodies 
and brains . . . and what did it all amount to ? 

And presently we should see other men who . . . 

Where are we ? ” I said at last. 

“ We’re about half a mile from West Ginstead.” 

We put the things together again presently, went 
back to the motor and climbed in. The others also 
seemed rather subdued. I glanced at Algy once or 
twice, but there was nothing particular to notice. 
He looked as he had this morning, very youthful 


170 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


and ordinary and well-dressed. He threw away his 
cigarette as he took his place. 

I have looked at a map once or twice since that 
day and perceive that we must have passed through 
a village, but all that I entirely forget. I only re- 
member a little, new, yellow brick house with a fat 
man smoking a cigar in the garden in front. I have 
a terrible habit of conjecturing; and I remember 
that I became entirely absorbed in thoughts of the 
fat man, as we spun on towards the monastery. I 
gave him a fat wife and a daughter or two, I dubbed 
him retired grocer and Baptist, I even furnished his 
house for him, with a stuffed trout in the dining- 
room, and decided that he had just dined there heav- 
ily with a glass of port wine to end up with. And 
now he was smoking a fourpenny cigar in his own 
front garden, in a basket chair, and contemplating 
those who went by. Well; that was his theory of 
life. He would say that he had earned it, and he 
would be considered by practically all the world to 
be right. And here, nearer every instant, was a 
company of men who had quite another theory, 
who believed that Pain had a function in life, 
that material comfort was the least of all small 
things, that reality lay in what was unseen, that si- 
lence and solitude led to an initiation of which the 
world knows nothing, that the ‘‘ kingdom of 
heaven^’ suffers violence and that the violent, not 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


171 

the acquiescent, nor the contented, nor the sitters in 
arm-chairs, take it by force. Which then, was 
right? for it was difficult, in spite of the amazing 
eccentricities of Vocation, to think that both were. 
In fact, it might almost be said that one theory 
must be simply insane. Which? . . . 

We turned abruptly off the high-road at a lodge, 
spun up a short kind of curved avenue and halted 
at a gate resembling that of a college. Overhead, 
beyond the white stone edge, lay an indigo cloud, 
heavy with thunderous menace. 

Then I perceived that we had arrived. 

(n) 

Chris drew down the bell-pull; there was a jangle 
within, and almost immediately we heard steps ap- 
proaching. Then the wicket opened, and a tall, 
brown-faced young man in a brown stuff habit, 
girded with a leather belt, looked out. His face 
suddenly smiled tranquilly as he saw Chris, and he 
stepped back, motioning us to enter. Chris went 
first, then Algy, then Dick, then I. 

‘‘ You have come to see us again, then, Mr. Dell,” 
said the young man, as we halted in the archway. 

‘‘ Why, yes,” smiled Chris ; and I have brought 
some friends. This is Mr. Banister, a Protestant, 
who wants to see what a Religious House is like. 
Can we see Father Johnson? ” 


172 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


“Oh! I think so/’ 

Then we went across the court that leads to- 
wards the church. 

We were all silent. For myself, I never want to 
say a single word in these places! I am much too 
busy, but I looked once or twice at Algy and saw 
in his face such a portentous gravity that I really 
laughed aloud. Even Dick wore an expression of 
stern stupidity, and I have no doubt that I did the 
same. Chris alone was perfectly natural. The 
Brother pointed out one or two things to us, the 
statue of St. Hugh over the west end of the church, 
and so forth, but we said nothing, and presently 
we came into the church itself, passing a great cat 
that sunned himself on the steps. 

It is not a very beautiful church. It has not that 
austereness that one would expect ; on the contrary, 
it is rather pretty, with its red lamps, its apse, its 
rows of polished stalls. Yet the knowledge that 
here it is that Carthusians praise God in commu- 
nity, the lay brothers in the ante-chapel, and the 
Fathers in the choir, the sight of the lanterns 
against the wall, the vast books from which they 
recite — the knowledge and the sight of all this 
tends to make one forget the rest. I expect I looked 
as solemn as the others. We said a prayer or 
two, while Algy stood severely upright beside us; 
and then we came out again. * 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


173 


We arrived, finally, in a strangely unattractive 
room on the first floor. It looked like a half-con- 
verted “ morning-room,” like a penitent in a ball- 
dress. There was a faded gilt cornice running 
round the high ceiling; there was a rather elaborate 
fire-place; the floor was waxed, and a tall window 
looked out on to a piece of land that was half gar- 
den, half meadow. A tall man in the white habit 
and a large straw hat was raking on the path be- 
neath. There was very little furniture in the room 
— a round table, half a dozen chairs, a prie-dieu 
with a plaster head of St. Bruno and a faded mat 
before the fire. 

Part of the old country-house,” said Chris ab- 
ruptly. “Beastly, isn’t it?” 

“ The parlor,” observed Dick. 

Algy said nothing; he stood with his back to the 
fire-place, surveying. 

Then the door suddenly opened, and a little man 
in white came in, closing it behind him. 

Now I wish to describe this man carefully, be- 
cause he made a very singular and wholly indefin- 
able impression upon me. As he shook hands, first 
with Chris, and was then introduced to each of us, 
making us sit down and listening to explanations, I 
was observing him violently. 

He was small, not above five feet four; he was 
dressed in a grayish white of some woolly-looking 


174 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


material; his scapular was linked, front to back, at 
the height of his knees, by a broad band. His 
hands were hidden, as he sat, beneath his scapular 
that, like the tunic beneath, fell into stiff, ungrace- 
ful folds. His whole head and face were shaven 
to a blueish black color, and the rest of his complex- 
ion was almost colorless. His mouth was small and 
compressed, his nose was slightly hooked, and his 
ears projected a little. His voice was almost tone- 
less, it said things without a touch of emotion, and 
he seemed rather tired. But he was not at all pa- 
thetic or picturesque. He wore ordinary black 
boots. 

To analyze in words a psychological impression is 
always difficult, but with this man it appears im- 
possible, for there seemed to be no atmosphere 
about him at all. Yet there was one sensation, that 
I remember distinctly, of a negative character. It 
was that, as I looked at the others in his presence, 
the three seemed strangely shrunken and mean. It 
was as if we were all plebeians in the presence of a 
prince — coarse, ill-bred, empty-headed bourgeois. 
Yet there was not in his air anything remarkable. 
It was we who were remarkably small and rather 
coarse, not he that was remarkably great or ethe- 
real. He seemed the normal man, we the abnormal. 
He did not bring with him a spiritual aroma such as 
I had expected. He did not say searching or sug- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


175 


gestive or oracular sentences. He told us small 
facts as to the number of monks at present in the 
house — there were about a hundred fathers, I think 
he said — he told us about the room we were sitting 
in and the date of the foundation of the house, all 
in that same rather insignificant but perfectly steady 
voice. Looking back on him now, I think I should 
say that he was a man simply and entirely uninter- 
ested in the things that interest the world and per- 
fectly secretive about things that interested him. 
Things other than his own business had no personal 
relation to him at all. It was nothing at all to him 
that his parlor resembled a fifth-rate morning-room, 
nor that four strangers from the world sat there 
eying and listening to him. I could see that, if he 
had permitted himself to be so, he would have been 
bored. As it was, he took it all in the day’s work ; 
yet, so far as he had any inclination at all, it was 
for a return to his cell as soon as might be. 

Here, too, then, I began to construct an atmos- 
phere for him, but it was chiefly of this negative de- 
scription. The small things that make up the life of 
the rest of us, conversations, sights, books, rail- 
way trains, business, plans for the future — these 
things simply were not for him. About him lay 
silence, behind him lay — well, his personal his- 
tory (he had once been an Anglican clergyman) 
in front of him lay a future which was precisely the 


176 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


same as the present, days and nights following one 
another like shadows on a lighted wall, until they 
ceased and he died. 

Chris stood up suddenly. 

‘‘Well, father, we musn’t keep you. May the 
Brother show us one of the cells? Mr. Banister is 
anxious to see one.’’ 

The priest stood up too. A rumble of thunder 
sounded from far away. 

“ Certainly,” he said. “ I will send him to you 
directly.” 

He put out his hand. “ Fortunately you will be 
under cover,” he said. “ I think there will be a 
storm.” 

“ Pray for us, father,” said Chris. 

“ I will do so,” said the priest. Then he took a 
hand of each of us, made a little bow and went out. 

We passed out, too, presently, led again by the 
brown-clad Brother, all in silence, down the stairs, 
and then along one of the sides of the huge clois- 
ter. 

It is so huge that the mind simply does not take it 
in. One appears to be passing down a low, white, 
vaulted tunnel running to a vanishing point in 
front, pierced by wide windows looking on to a 
stretch of turf and bushes. There were doors on 
the left-hand, with names and Latin texts inscribed 
over them. Once or twice we caught sight of a 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


177 


grave white figure in the distance; but the silence 
was profound. There might have been no world in 
existence. 

We stopped at last at a door. This door was 
pierced by a shuttered hatch ; and over it were writ- 
ten the words : 

IN COELO QUIES 

The Brother unlocked it, and we went in. 

We found ourselves in a small, paved vestibule, 
perhaps twelve yards long and three across. At the 
further end, on the left, rose up a flight of stairs. 
We went past these stairs and turned to the right 
into a room of which one wall was wanting, opening 
straight and flat on to a small garden about twice 
the size of the vestibule, walled high all around. 
Half this garden contained cabbages, and the other 
half was turf with a path bisecting it. 

“ The workshop,” said the Brother briefly. And 
if a monk wants fresh air he can always dig in this 
garden.” 

He proceeded to explain the plan of the cell, tell- 
ing us that they were all alike. Each was an ob- 
long, of which the ground-floor consisted of that we 
had seen — vestibule, workshop, and garden; the 
first-floor had two rooms built over the workshop; 
these we should see immediately. In wet weather 
the monk could walk up and down his vestibule. 
At no point in the cell or the garden could he be 
12 


178 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


overlooked by anybody, the seclusion was complete. 

We said nothing- at all — there was nothing to 
say — and in silence again we followed the Brother 
up the stairs and into the first of the two rooms. 
This had a window looking into the garden, a small 
image of Our Lady stood on a shelf opposite the 
door, and there was nothing else at all in the room. 
The floor was bare wood, the walls and ceiling were 
white-washed. 

‘‘ Once,’’ said the Brother, ‘‘ each monk used to 
cook his own food, and used this room for that. 
Now it is found more convenient to have the food 
cooked in the kitchen and pushed in through the 
hatch downstairs. This next is the room where the 
monk practically lives.” 

We followed him through a second door, and 
stood looking, while he explained. On our right 
was a window, also overlooking the garden, and be- 
fore it stood a wooden table and chair. On our left 
was a curious wooden construction, resembling three 
low stalls in a stable. That nearest us held a prie- 
dieu and a seat opposite it; that in the middle held 
a low bed; the third in the further corner of the 
room was empty. 

The thunder burst in long peal after peal as we 
came in, flinging its echoes everywhere in the great 
stone buildings about us. 

** He says the Little Office of Our Lady there,” 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


179 


said the Brother, raising his voice a little and point- 
ing to the prie-dieu. ‘‘ All say it at the same time, 
each in his cell — in fact all the office that is not said 
in church is said there — in the middle division he 
sleeps, and in the third he washes and so forth and 
keeps his things. He dines here, at the table, and 
washes up the plates afterwards.” 

‘‘ What about the food? ” asked Dick in a sepul- 
chral voice. 

Oh ! the food is excellent and well cooked. 
Dinner is three or four courses, without meat, and 
a bottle of wine each day. Supper is the bread and 
wine left over from dinner. 

And thaCs all?” 

‘‘ That’s all,” smiled the Brother. 

We stood, looking and reflecting. 

For myself I must confess that the faint sense of 
horror of which I had at first been aware, was rap- 
idly passing. All seemed so snug and compact and 
well-ordered. Certainly it was slavery of a kind, 
in which every duty must be done in a particular 
way and at certain fixed hours, yet there was in it 
a sense of freedom too that is indescribable. The 
lust of possession, the complications of intercourse, 
the distractions of arranging and moving, provision 
for the future — all these things that occupy the 
rest of us for nine-tenths of our waking hours were 
entirely absent. The world is simply gone; there 


i8o 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


remain only the flesh and the devil. And it was in 
this room, exactly, among precisely these surround- 
ings that the conflict goes on, in dead silence and 
seclusion, until death. 

Yet I said nothing, again there was nothing to 
say, but I felt rather more at my ease as I went 
down the stairs again presently after the Brother 
and came out into the cloister. 

Here however a significant thing happened. 

As the Brother stepped out before us into the 
cloister, he suddenly recoiled and made a little ges- 
ture, and I who was next to him saw, before step- 
ping backwards, that a kind of procession was ap- 
proaching. Then I too stepped back and waited, 
and so we all stood in silence. 

Then across the door there passed a figure, hooded 
and clothed all in white, pacing slowly with hands 
hidden. As he saw us he raised his hands an in- 
stant to his hood in salutation. Then he was gone, 
and another came, and another, and another. Two 
of them were in black, one of them, a postulant 
I suppose, was in wide black cloak and biretta, with 
a young, Spanish-looking face. For the rest, for 
there were ten or twelve in all, I should say, there 
was no common characteristic except that of color- 
less tranquillity. Some were fat faces, even gross, 
ill-shaven, some lean and fierce, and so they went 
past, in Indian file, each walking four or five paces 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS i8i 


from his fellows in front and behind, all close to the 
wall. Yet the pause, the silence, the slight saluta- 
tion, the hush in which we stood, made the little 
ceremony extraordinarily impressive. It was like 
a procession of Princes, so stately and so reverent 
was it. There was '' no beauty in them, that we 
should desire them,’’ yet there was that unmistak- 
able stamp of Royalty. So they passed, accom- 
panied by the rolling of the passing storm. Beyond 
them the rods of rain, lit by an emerging sun, 
flashed incessantly in the cloister-garth. 

On the way back to the entrance, passing again 
through the cloisters, down which, at the dead of 
night, pass the ghostly white figures each lighting 
himself with a lantern to. church, we looked into 
the chapter-house, where, above the altar and at 
the opposite end, are painted terrible frescoes, 
streaming with blood, representing the company of 
Carthusian fathers suffering at Tyburn under much- 
married Henry Tudor. It was odd to think that 
these white, grave figures looked each day at such 
pictures, showing them what discipline could do, 
and what they too must be ready to bear if the call 
should come. Yet was it not possible that the con- 
quests silently wrought out in this seclusion were 
at least as supreme as those on noisy Tyburn? I 
thought of the little red-streaked scourges. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


182 


At the entrance once more, we shook hands with 
the Brother, after writing our names in the little 
book in the lodge. He stood waiting while the 
chauffeur wound up the handle of the motor, and as 
we moved off he nodded and smiled at us pleas- 
antly. The rain too was over, and a great fresh 
joyousness rose from the soaked earth. 

As we passed out at the gate I turned to Algy, 
and for the first time noticed how white his face 
looked. 

Well?” I said cheerfully. 

He compressed his lips an instant, then he opened 
them suddenly. 

‘‘ I think it is just . . . just damnable.” 


CHAPTER IV 


'(0 

lY/rONSIGNOR RICHARD YOLLAND rang 
the bell at 71 Egerton Crescent, just two 
months later, and turned round to wait. It was 
a very hot cloudless day in June, about half-past 
four in the afternoon. As he said to himself cyn- 
ically on his way there, he didn’t want to go to tea 
with anybody, and he didn’t want to go to anything 
with Lady Brasted. Yet he was combining both, 
in answer to an earnest little note from that lady, 
begging him to come and meet a young man of 
whom she had great hopes. Then the door opened 
and he went in. 

The little hall was very Italian and very pious, 
and he looked as he had looked before at the Della 
Robbia over the Elizabethan chest and the chaste 
fleur-de-lis wall-paper, vaguely grateful that the 
Catholic religion had other sides than that which 
attracted Lady Brasted. He always had a faint sen- 
sation of spiritual stuffiness in this house. Then 
he had passed up the stairs, heard his name an- 
nounced, gone forward, and, as he shook hands with 
his filmy ethereal hostess, perceived that Algy Banis- 
ter, in a black tail-coat and gray trousers, was sit- 

183 


i 84 the conventionalists 


ting on the edge of his chair, embarrassed by a cup 
of tea. 

He had heard no news whatever of this young 
man since he had said good-bye to him at the door 
of Chris’s cottage on the morning after the visit to 
Parkminster. I had had one letter of inquiry from 
him at Cambridge, but Algy had not been near me 
again, and I had nothing to say. And now here he 
was. 

‘‘ Dear Monsignor, how good of you ! ” mur- 
mured Lady Brasted. “ May I present Mr. Algy 
Banister . . . Monsignor Yolland.” 

Dick repressed his annoyance at the word pre- 
sent,” and laughed outright. 

There is no need,” he said. I know Mr. Ban- 
ister.” 

During Lady Brasted’s cooings and exclamations, 
the two shook hands. Dick guessed he had been 
only a second string to a Jesuit who had failed his 
hostess and that no hint had been given to Algy as 
to whom he was to meet. 

“We met down at . . . at — in Sussex,” he 

said, suddenly confounded. 

“Not at Crowston?” murmured Lady Brasted, 
busy at the tea-cups. 

“ No,” said Dick brutally, and threw a wild 
glance at Algy. 

Fortunately the other understood that he was to 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


185 


hold his tongue, and then presently they were off 
in small-talk. 

Algy’s statements were difficult to diagnose. He 
seemed bored, resentful, peevish, shy and, on the 
whole, pleased to see Dick. He tended to hold his 
chin in the air and to talk in a head-voice, and 
Dick saw plainly enough that Lady Brasted had 
been at him. And then, with almost indecent haste 
she opened fire once more. 

‘‘ I have been telling Mr. Banister that he really 
must come with me to Farm Street to hear Father 
Badminton. It is wonderful, wonderful.” 

Dick munched a small Queen-cake. 

“ Mr. Banister tells me he has never even been 
inside Farm Street. How fortunate that you al- 
ready know him. Monsignor! He is up in town 
for a fortnight. You must take him everywhere, 
evervwhere ; and particularly Farm Street. 

Dick took another Queen-cake. 

I have been telling him that I always call the 
Jesuits the Fifth Mark of the Church. Nothing but 
the Catholic Church could have produced such an 
Order.” 

Dick had heard this pious piece of humor more 
than once from Lady Brasted, and it had now lost 
its freshness. He loved the Jesuits, too ; in fact, his 
own confessor was one; but he wondered whether 
the Jesuits particularly loved Lady Brasted. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


1 86 


‘‘ Now you will, won’t you, Monsignor ? ” 

Dick was beginning to see red, or at least a faint 
pink. He felt exactly as he would have felt at the 
sight of a precocious child fingering a delicate piece 
of mechanism. Here was the soul of this boy, as 
he knew very well, in an exceedingly fragile state 
and as complicated as any psychological specimen 
could be. No priest in the world, who knew his 
business, would dare to treat it in this way, and here 
was this- well-meaning woman twisting it about, 
poking her fingers into it, spinning the wheels, and 
trying to regulate and rearrange it without the faint- 
est idea of what she was doing. Once or twice be- 
fore he had been angry enough at being hauled into 
this room to administer remarks to budding prose- 
lytes, but this particular case was worse than all. 
He turned abruptly to Algy. 

“ Where are you staying ? ” he said. 

‘‘ Uncle,” said Algy. 

‘‘Up long?” 

“ A fortnight.” 

Lady Brasted paused tactfully in her clinking 
among the tea-things to let these precious remarks 
sink into the young man’s mind, and then began 
again. 

“You will take him; won’t you. Monsignor?” 

“ I should think probably not,” said Monsignor. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


187 


‘‘ Mr. Banister’s got his affairs, I should think. So 
have I.” 

There was an uncomfortable little pause. Then 
Dick overcame his annoyance and turned frankly 
to his hostess — 

I’m fearfully busy, you know,” he said. I 
simply haven’t a minute — ” 

Lady Brasted rustled reassuringly. It was part 
of her pose never to be disturbed. 

‘‘ Oh ! I know, I know,” she said ; and went off 
into a torrent of conversation about small ecclesias- 
tical affairs. Dick played bis part and observed 
Algy, whose atmosphere darkened every instant. 

It was plain enough to the priest that if anything 
on earth, or under it, could hinder this young man 
from becoming a Catholic, it would be Lady Bras- 
ted’s methods. The very room was an obstacle to 
conversion. It was all in white and gold and blue, 
polished boards, drawn Venetian shutters, scented 
heavily with tuberoses. A great bowl of them, in 
iridescent glass, stood on a table between the win- 
dows, sending up its heavy immoral fragrance to- 
wards an ivory Pieta that hung on the wall. On a 
carved bracket above the mantelpiece stood a black 
Madonna, dripping with beads ; and round the walls 
were hung a succession of Italian water-colors, secu- 
lar in subject, and ecclesiastical by a kind of subtle. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


i88 


tactful suggestiveness. He wondered what on 
earth Lord Brasted made of it ; till he reflected upon 
the small, middle-aged sort of room downstairs 
where he himself had once smoked a cigar. The 
husband, no doubt, regarded the wife’s religion ex- 
actly as he did her frocks and jewels — part of the 
feminine atmosphere, which must be taken as a 
whole and paid for. Dick always felt at a disad- 
vantage here, as might a kind of gentleman mill- 
iner to whom Lord Brasted was polite. He knew 
perfectly well that,’ as a priest, he was regarded with 
contempt, as being not quite a real man. The little 
triangle of purple silk he wore now beneath his 
collar became very nearly for him a badge of shame 
when Lord Brasted, a month before, had asked 
him, in the presence of other people, what it de- 
noted. Dick resented all this unspeakably. He had 
a violent desire, upon which he had mused with 
pleasure, to take this virile nobleman by the scruff 
of the neck and cram him — say — into a Carthu- 
sian cell for a month, to let him see for himself 
whether the Catholic religion were no more than 
an elegant accomplishment. 

And here was Lady Brasted, spiritually trickling 
on about priests and marble altars and sermons and 
architecture. 

It was a full half-hour before he could get away. 
He had determined not to move before Algy, and 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 189 


until the young man stood up suddenly, he sat and 
endured it and was polite. 

He let Algy get out of the room, and then in- 
stantly turned to Lady Brasted. 

I must be going, too,’' he said. Yes, he is a 
delightful boy.” 

‘‘ I am so glad you could come,” cried Lady Bras- 
ted. ‘‘ You know I think it so important. Of 
course, all souls are equal, and all that. I think 
that so true ; but, you know, dear Algy is the eldest 
son now; and that is so important, so full of re- 
sponsibility.” 

‘‘ Yes, exactly,” interrupted Dick. Good-bye, 
Lady Brasted.” 

And he turned and almost ran from the room. 

Lady Brasted sat still a moment, smiling sweetly 
to herself. Then she gave a little murmur, and 
formulated, almost in words, the impression that 
Dick’s visit had helped to emphasize. 

What a pity it is that priests are so unpercep- 
tive.” 

Then she looked at the clock, and decided that it 
was time to say her rosary. She had at least tried 
to be helpful. 


190 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


(ii) 

Dick, bursting out of the front door as if dis- 
charged from a spring, saw a figure in a black coat 
and gray trousers rapidly making off round the 
curve of the Crescent. He saw instantly that the 
poor boy was simply trying to get away. But he 
had no mercy. He ran, and before Algy crossed 
the road, called him so loudly that the other really 
could do nothing but turn round. 

Dick was a trifle cross. A small boy had shouted 
derisive encouragement at the sight of a stout 
clergyman, running, with a purple necktie, and a 
fox-terrier had barked at him so suddenly from be- 
hind some area bars that he had shied like a horse, 
and a prickly perspiration had burst out all over him 
with the shock. So his first remark was inconsider- 
ate. 

“ That beast ! ” he said. '' I can’t bear her. I 
wanted to tell you I was sorry.” 

Algy looked so politely astonished that he per- 
ceived his remark had been a little unpriestly, if not 
actually unchristian. 

No — she’s a good sort, really. But she’s so 
infernally meddling.” 

‘‘ She’s very zealous, isn’t she,” said Algy, smil- 
ing sarcastically with his nose in the air. 

‘‘ That’s just it. All these converts are. Look 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


191 


here, walk with me as far as my house. I want to 
talk to you. I swear I won’t ask you to come to 
Farm Street.” 

Algy smiled with one side of his mouth. 

“ I never want to hear another word about the 
Catholic Church as long as I live,” he observed pres- 
ently. 

‘‘ My dear fellow, I know exactly what you 
mean,” said Dick comfortably. “ I always want to 
do outrageous things myself after seeing that 
woman. When she talks about religion she’s intol- 
erable; and when she doesn’t she’s . . . she’s 

insupportable. . . . (Take care of that cab.) ” 

They dived down a side-street where they could 
talk more freely, and began again. 

“ Why didn’t you want me to say where we had 
met before ? ” asked Algy. 

Dick hesitated a moment ; but after all it was pub- 
lic property. 

Well, to be plain with you, Chris and Lady 
Brasted had an affair once — ages ago. They were 
engaged, you know.” 

What? ” 

‘‘Yes; indeed they were. Then she threw him 
over.” 

“ Why?” 

Oh — you know — well — Chris was rather a 
bad hat at one time ; and it came out.” 


192 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


Algy pondered this in silence. 

‘‘ You didn’t know ? ” 

Algy shook his head. 

“ What an ass she must be,” he said. 

“ Yes, certainly; but a good ass, you know.” 

‘‘ But — but that’s so ghastly about Catholics, you 
know,” burst out Algy explosively. Either 
they’re like that woman — or else — ” 

Yes?” 

“ Or else those frightful Carthusians.” 

Dick took his arm firmly. 

‘‘ My dear man; I’m glad you’ve said that. Now 
I take back my promise. I’m going to have an ex- 
planation.” 

“ Explanation ? What about ? ” 

‘‘ Look here,” said Dick firmly, ‘‘ I’m going to 
insult you. You mustn’t hit me, you know, sua- 
dente dkiholo — that’s excommunication.” 

What on earth do you mean ? ” 

‘‘Oh! well, never mind. Now then, are you 
ready ? ” 

“Well?” (Algy’s voice sounded rather breath- 
less.) 

“ Do you know I’m pretty sure you’re in bad 
faith — insincere — there ! ” 

Algy’s mouth opened. 

“ No,” continued Dick. “ Just hear me out. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


193 


I want to know what made you turn round all of a 
sudden at Parkminster.” 

A sort of spasm of indignation shook Algy; but 
Dick gave him no chance. 

“ Listen/’ he said. I’m not at all clever — I 
know that well enough — but there are one or two 
things I have learnt in my life, and one of them is 
that there’s nothing commoner than for people to 
try to kill their own conscience. Now if you can 
tell me honestly that you weren’t trying to do that 
as we came out from Parkminster, I’ll beg your par- 
don humbly and sincerely. I always take people’s 
word. It’s the only way. No . . . please 

wait till we reach the next turning.” 

He released Algy’s arm as he spoke, and together 
in silence they passed down the broad pavement. It 
was one of those West End streets that consist 
chiefly of mews and cobbled interruptions to the 
traveler’s footsteps, and at this hour all was peace. 
A cat or two sat in the westering sunlight here and 
there, but there was no human being in sight, ex- 
cept where, straight in front, passed and repassed 
in golden dust the carriages and motors on their way 
back from the park. 

Once Algy began a sentence. 

Please — ” said Dick ; and there was silence 

again. 


13 


194 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


At about five paces from the corner Dick spoke 
once more, halting* a moment. 

Look here,’' he said, “ I want to say this, too. 
Lm not going to argue about the Contemplative 
Life. I know nothing whatever about it. But I 
take it that both you and I know quite enough about 
it not to argue. Of course, if you choose to hide 
yourself behind the man in the street and say that 
nobody’s got any business to shut themselves up, 
and all the rest of that sort of cant — well, I’m si- 
lenced. Do you see ? ” 

He moved on again, and the two passed out from 
the lane into the thoroughfare. 

Dick said nothing, nor did Algy, and in silence 
they passed up the pavement, threading their way, 
now separated, now together. Dick was very 
strangely moved, he told me afterwards. When he 
had run after Algy ten minutes ago he had had not 
the slightest intention of re-opening this old subject; 
and now, in spite of the extraordinary incongruous- 
mess of talking to a well-dressed young man about 
his conscience in a walk through London streets, he 
had found himself plunged into this oddly intimate 
conversation. He had issued such a challenge as 
needs usually the most delicately appropriate cir- 
cumstances. They crossed another street, turned 
again to the right and passed along. Algy fol- 
lowing, it seemed, by a merely mechanical move- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


195 


ment of his legs. Dick was in a flurry of indecision, 
though he showed no signs of it. That is one of 
the few advantages in being really stout. They 
were coming very near his lodgings now, and Algy 
had not spoken. Once or twice the question rose 
again to the priest’s lips, and each time it expired 
in silence. Then, for the last time, they turned a 
corner, passed along an empty pavement and halted 
before three steps that led up between railings to a 
house-door. 

Dick stopped and faced the other. He noticed 
that his face was remarkably obstinate and yet that 
he seemed distressed. 

‘‘ I live here,” he said. Would you care to 
come in for five minutes ? ” 

Dick’s old servant, Betty, who kept house for 
him, poked her head round the corner of the stairs 
ten seconds later, and observed her master, followed 
by a young man, come into the hall and go upstairs 
without speaking. She was very old now and 
panted a good deal in this weather, so she thought 
she would wait to see if a bell rang for tea. Per- 
haps Master Dick had had tea. But she went down- 
stairs again and put the kettle on, to make certain. 

Time went on, and six o’clock struck, and at that 
her resolution steadied itself. She lifted the kettle 
off and started upstairs. When she reached the 


196 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


first floor she hesitated, listening with her old head 
on one side for nothing in particular. But there 
was no sound; and she tapped. Then she tapped 
again. Then she opened the door gently and 
looked in. 

Her master was standing on the hearthrug with 
his hands behind him. The young gentleman was 
standing by the window looking out. Both turned 
at the sound, and looked at her in a curiously ex- 
pectant way. 

‘'Tea, Master Dick?” she said. 

He shook his head; and she went out again. 

(Ill) 

Dick let Algy out that evening a little after seven 
o’clock. Then he went back to his room, sat down 
in his easy-chair and remained perfectly still. 

After a quarter of an hour he got up, opened his 
engagement-book, and wrote down on the Tuesdays 
and Fridays for the following fortnight the entry 
“ A. B. 6-7.” Then he went to his shelves and se- 
lected three or four books which he placed on the 
table. He sat down, turning the pages of these, 
and at last made them into a parcel, tied them up, 
and addressed them to A. Banister, Esq. at an ad- 
dress in Prince’s Gate. 

Then again he sat still for a long time, twisting a 
paper-knife in his fingers. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


197 


Then he suddenly seized notepaper from in front 
and wrote me the following letter, which I copy 
from as I write. 

'' My Dear Father, 

I have seen Algy Banister again, and he gives 
me leave to tell you everything. I met him by an 
extraordinary chance this afternoon at the invita- 
tion of Annie Brasted — of all people in the world ! 
She had caught him somehow, and sent for me to 
talk to him — you know her way. 

‘‘ Well, it has all turned out in a most astonishing 
manner, and I may as well tell you at once that it 
has ended by his promising to come to me for in- 
structions during this next fortnight while he is in 
town. And now for his history. 

My dear man, he's been through, literally, a hell 
of time. That exclamation of his at coming out 
from Parkminster was simple Bad Faith. By an 
extraordinary stroke of luck, which I can’t explain 
at all except by Divine Providence, I happened to 
spot that and, by still more extraordinary luck, 
happened to say so — outright — in Prince’s Mews. 
I gave him fifty yards to answer in — to make up his 
mind whether he was going to be or not. He held 
his tongue. He said nothing at all till we reached 
my house. Then I asked him if he was coming in. 
My dear man, he had about three seconds’ evident 


198 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


conflict. Then he came in and told me the truth 
from beginning to end. 

‘‘ Well ; apparently he’s been a Catholic at least 
since Christmas. But he’s simply funked it. I 
don’t blame him. He’ll have a frightful time of it 
at home, I expect. The Parkminster business gave 
him his first real dig. Of course, he knows nothing 
whatever really about the Church, except that it’s 
the Church — la foi du charbonnier . — And the 
next question is the Vocation. 

Now I know nothing about Vocations. My 
own gives me enough to do. But I know this much, 
that it’s simple madness for him to attempt Park- 
minster. They wouldn’t look at him, of course. 
Besides, he can’t possibly know his own mind, 
and, to tell the truth, he’s humble enough to see 
that. 

‘‘ No, he’s going to tell his people when he goes 
home at the end of next week; and we’re going to 
make arrangements for his reception after that. 
And, as regards all future matters, that’s going to 
be left for the present. 

Well ; I thought you’d like to know this. Pray 
for us. He’ll want it, and I always do, as you 
know. 

Ever yours, 

‘‘ R. Yolland.'’^ 

** P.S. — I’m just going to send a line to Chris, 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


199 


Annie Brasted, of course, will think that she’s more 
of a ministering angel than ever.” 

Of course this letter took me completely by sur- 
prise, and, of course equally, after five minutes I 
was telling myself that I had known it all along. 
As a matter of fact it was, of course, the only pos- 
sible explanation. Algy had kept away with ex- 
traordinary care, and I ought to have understood 
why ; but, like a blind idiot, I had really thought his 
ferocity after Parkminster to be genuine conven- 
tionality. 

I sat down and wrote him a long letter. Then I 
tore it all up, and wrote him a short one. 

After a week I received this answer — 

Dear Father Benson, 

‘‘ Thanks very much for your congratulations. 
I haven’t told my people yet, but I’m going to, at the 
end of the week. I shall hope to be received in 
August or September. 

‘‘Now I want to tell you this, and I hope you 
won’t be disappointed. It is that I feel pretty sure 
now that I haven’t any sort of Vocation for Re- 
ligion. I’ve been talking a great deal to Monsignor 
Yolland, and I really do think that my duty is to 
stop at home. I don’t expect I shall enjoy it par- 
ticularly, but I can always go round the world or 


200 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


something. Besides, really I’m rather frightened 
of Parkminster. It’s awful, you know. Of course, 
it’s very splendid and all that, but I’m sure it’s not 
for me. I really could not stand it. I’m not big 
enough. And my people would be perfectly wild. 
It’ll be bad enough my becoming a Catholic, but 
this would finish them altogether. I am sure I must 
just stop at home, and I expect you’ll agree with 
me. 

Thanks so much for everything you’ve done for 
me. I’m using the ‘ Penny Catechism ’ you gave 
me at Cambridge. 

“ I wonder if you’d come down to Crowston for 
a day or two later on, if my people can stand it. I 
don’t mean yet, but next winter, perhaps, when 
they’ve had time to settle down. I wish you would. 
And I want Mr. Dell to come too. 

I must stop. 

‘‘ Ever yours sincerely, 

‘‘ Algernon Banister.” 

I put the letter down ; and I said three words — 

‘‘ Poor dear man ! ” 


CHAPTER V 


(I) 

TT AROLD BANISTER strolled out on to the 
lawn with his hands in his pockets, passing- on 
the garden-steps the footman who was carrying 
back to the house the remnants of the twelve o’clock 
post. The remnants consisted of two letters di- 
rected to Harold Banister, Esq., in a clerkly hand, 
in envelopes bearing the Oxford postmark, with 
suspiciously rounded flaps. Harold put them in his 
pocket, and passed on under the cedar. There he 
found his mother as he had expected. She woke up 
from a letter. 

Algy’s coming by the six forty-nine,” she said 
with an air of vague discomfort. He says he’s 
got something to tell us.” 

Oh,” said Harold. 

He sat down and crossed his legs. 

‘‘ I say, mother, can I have the motor to take me 
over to the Farquharsons? ” 

She looked at him still vaguely distraite. 

Oh, yes,” she said. ‘‘ I suppose so. I wonder 
what the boy means.” 


201 


202 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


‘‘ Bother Algy ! And may it wait for me ? ” 

She started. 

‘‘The motor? Oh, yes, if your father doesn't 
want it. But you’ll have to stop at the station to 
pick up Algy.” 

Harold grinned. 

(There was some lawn tennis at the Farquhar- 
sons, eight miles off. Sybil had remarked in a post- 
script of a formal little note she had written to him 
that she would be there. ) 

“ Six forty-nine did you say ? ” 

“ Yes — six forty-nine,” murmured Mrs. Ban- 
ister, gathering up her envelopes and departing. 

Harold sat on, and after registering a resolution 
that seven o’clock would be in plenty of time, began 
to think about Sybil. 

The situation had been strangely shifted by 
Theo’s death. It was as when diamonds be'come 
trumps in the ingenious game of Jacoby. An un- 
important personage, while remaining personally 
unimportant, had become officially significant, and 
it was difficult to know under which aspect to deal 
with him. Algy was as unsuited as ever to his en- 
vironment, as slightly out of tune, yet he was the 
heir, and his attitude towards things now mattered. 
For example, in disposing of a certain outlying 
wood belonging to Crowston estate Mr. Banister 


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203 


had thought it necessary to mention the affair to 
Algy; the bearing of the servants had undergone a 
minute but perfectly perceptible change; a groom 
had once hesitated for a fraction of a second at re- 
ceiving an order from Harold to saddle a certain 
much-coveted mare, and all this kind of thing had 
been unheard of a year before. 

Harold acquiesced well enough. Indeed, there 
was nothing else to do. In fact, he himself had 
begun to treat Algy with just the faintest suspicion 
of respect. But there were times when he resented 
it. 

His own affairs were not brilliantly flourishing. 
His relations with Sybil were as satisfactory as ever, 
but not more so ; nor were there any particular pros- 
pects of their becoming so. Further, he had played 
the fool rather at Oxford, and was exactly two hun- 
dred pounds poorer than he ought to have been, as 
his father had bitterly pointed out. And now there 
were two more bills. 

He drew them out of his pocket. 

Yes, they were polite enough, for he was still a 
freshman, but nineteen pounds seven shillings and 
threepence at a livery stable, and twenty-three 
pounds eleven shillings and fourpence at a wine mer- 
chant and tobacconist, amount to forty-two pounds 
eighteen shillings and seven pence (at least, I 
think so). He tore them carefully into minute 


204 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


pieces, inserted them into an envelope and crumpled 
the whole into a tight ball, which he replaced in his 
pocket. Then he began to review the situation 
with the help of a cigarette. 

First of all there was himself. 

Harold was perfectly charming, but he did not 
possess the virtue of being able to look at things 
from any standpoint except his own. He was geo- 
centrical. He was, as it were, the earth, and Sybil 
the moon; his parents were the larger stars, and 
Algy a kind of comet that approached rapidly 
through space. He had not yet found a Personage 
important enough to be represented by the sun. 
The comet was the important thing, and he did not 
quite know what its advent portended. For Algy 
had begun to bewilder him. 

There had been the affair with Mary Maple last 
year, which had had such a surprising termination. 
Harold was no fool, and he had understood the posi- 
tion, but what he did not at all understand was why, 
when the coast was obviously cleared by Theo’s 
death, Algy had seemed to take the alarm. They 
still saw a good deal of Mary, in fact, she was in 
the house now, but she had become subdued and 
rather more femininely feminine. 

Now if Algy had advanced towards Mary, the sit- 
uation would have been more intelligible ; it was but 


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205 

proper that the eldest son should at least show signs 
of matrimony; but it was irritating that Harold 
himself should have this desire with no means of 
gratifying it and that Algy, with all the means, 
should have none of the desire. He felt a vague 
resentment at the thought. 

He had written to his father once from Oxford, 
in a burst of confidence, signifying that he would 
like to. know, even in the most general terms, what 
his own prospects were to be; but Mr. Banister’s 
letter, written immediately after the reception of 
one from Harold’s tutor, had not been reassuring; 
he had told him that his business was to read his 
books at Oxford, keep within his allowance and not 
to be a young fool. And Harold could not but 
grant that there was justice in these remarks. 

He was just finishing his cigarette, when Mary 
came out, and he watched her come down the steps, 
very upright and dignified, in a large straw hat. He 
quite liked Mary. She was always pleasant and 
deferential. She appeared and disappeared at the 
proper feminine times. She occasionally asked him 
to do small jobs for her which flattered his pride, 
such as giving an opinion upon her bicycle and rec- 
ommending treatment for an invalid dog she had at 
home. And she never attempted the faintest famil- 
iarity in referring to Miss Sybil Markham. 

Algy’s coming down by the six forty-nine,” an- 


2o6 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


nounced Harold as she. stood looking down at him. 
“ It’s a beastly bore.” 

Her eyelids fluttered with discreet amusement. 

‘‘ How most brotherly ! ” she said. 

Harold laughed pleasantly. 

‘‘ Well, he is rather an old lump, isn’t he,” he 
cried. ‘‘ But I didn’t mean that. I meant that I’ve 
got to call for him in the motor.” 

I hope you’ll be punctual,” she said, sitting 
down and taking off her hat. 

‘‘ Oh, seven o’clock’ll do for Algy. Train’s sure 
to be late. Have a cigarette ? ” 

Mary’s eyes stole softly to right and left, for she 
knew this house to be a trifle old-fashioned. 

No gardeners about ? ” she observed. 

‘‘ Blow the gardeners,” said Harold, and held out 
his case. 

She took one, and held out her hand for his. Har- 
old gave it, and with a pleasant sense of intimacy 
watched her hold the glowing end to the end of the 
other and her long-lashed downcast eyes and her 
pursed mouth and her coils of shining hair. (What 
a fool Algy was! She would have done so well!) 

“ I say; I’m going to the Farquharsons.” 

‘‘Yes?” said Mary, breathing out fragrant 
smoke. 

“ Sybil’s to be there. Shall I give her your 
love? ” 


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207 


‘‘ Do/’ said Mary, without the faintest sign of 
consciousness. ‘‘ I do like that girl.” 

So do I,” said Harold earnestly, watching her. 
But Mary smoked on without a tremor. 

“ She’s just like a Gainsborough,” she observed 
presently. And will go on looking more and more 
like a French marquise every year she lives.” 

Harold’s soul was filled with delight. It was a 
precious consolation to him to talk like this without 
personal matters being even hinted at. In the 
depths of his heart he recognized the tact, but it was 
not obtrusive enough to annoy him. He positively 
loved Mary at this moment. 

And she talked on for a few minutes with sublime 
discretion, saying a little more about Sybil, and then 
about the horse she would ride this afternoon, and 
then about this and that and the other, and then back 
to Sybil again. It was perfectly done. There was 
no significant insistence upon Sybil, yet she was 
there, underneath all the time, and emerged again 
at the proper moment for Harold’s consolation. 
Then, at last, when the boy, sadly remembering that 
he must see about the motor, left her and went in, 
a very subtle change passed over her face. She let 
the cigarette burn itself out unheeded, and sat look- 
ing before her at the hot air above the flower beds. 


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(n) 

When Harold, rather cross, drew up at five min- 
utes past seven at the station, he was informed that 
Mr. Algernon had walked on, leaving his luggage 
to be picked up. Five minutes later he caught sight 
of him ahead, walking strenuously, up a little slope 
between woods, his straw hat in his hand. 

The two brothers greeted one another unemotion- 
ally, Algy climbed in, sat down, fanning himself, 
and they moved on. 

Algy seemed rather constrained, thought the boy. 
He made short, deliberate answers and looked 
steadily ahead. Finally Harold put his inquisitive- 
ness into words : 

‘‘ I say, what have you got to tell mother ? ” 

Algy’s mouth twitched slightly ; he stared straight 
ahead of him. 

‘‘ You’ll hear this evening,” he said abruptly. 

Harold subsided with indignation. Then after a 
pause Algy went on, with a faintly defiant air. 

‘‘ Look here, Harold. I can’t tell you now, be- 
cause it isn’t fair. You’ll know this evening. Re- 
member I shan’t mind what side you take.” 

‘‘ That’s most satisfactory,” remarked the other 
with fierce irony. And so jolly explicit.” 

Algy made no answer, and they turned into the 
lodge gates in silence. 


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209 


But Harold had an idea, and his brain worked 
upon it busily. It was plain that it was something 
important, that it concerned the family and that the 
family would consider it unsatisfactory. So much 
was plain; and his mind therefore instantly leaped 
to a conclusion. 

By the swan-pond he put it into words. 

‘‘ How old is she ? ” he said coolly. 

Algy turned with such abruptness and with so 
much amazed a face that for an instant Harold 
thought himself on the right tack. Then the other 
laughed frankly. 

“ Rather under nineteen hundred years,” he said. 

‘‘ Funny airs,” murmured Harold vindictively, 
thinking himself mocked. 

As the house came into sight from the top of the 
rise, Algy drew a long breath and leaned forward, 
pressing his hands between his knees, and there was 
in his bearing such an apprehensiveness that once 
more Harold thought he had made a right guess. It 
was perhaps a barmaid, but more likely an actress or 
a milliner. Beyond such a catastrophe as this his 
mind did not soar. And the estate was entailed, 
and Algy was of full age, and nothing could be done. 
Well, well; his father perhaps could not do much, 
but at least he could say a good deal and with a 

kind of childish zest Harold chuckled intensely. 

14 


210 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


He at least would not be the only disgrace to the 
family. He would seem even virtuous by contrast. 

Mrs. Banister was positively waiting in the hall 
when they arrived, and her mild eyes seemed dis- 
I contented. 

' “ Well, my son? ” she said, as she kissed Algy. 

‘‘ After dinner,’’ he said. 

But she hung about him as he put by his hat and 
stick and stood rather indecisively as he passed to- 
wards the inner door. 

It’s all right, mother,” smiled Algy, ‘‘ At 
least — ” 

She turned to Harold. 

What is it ? Did he tell you ? ” 

Harold shook his head, and Mrs. Banister, after 
a weak effort to appear unconcerned, walked off to- 
wards her room. 

Algy was far more frightened than he had antici- 
pated. Somehow the sight of the house, its solidity, 
its uncompromising Britishness, the opulent and 
respectable park, the immovability of the air of the 
hall with its portraits and its crossed pikes — all 
combined to make him realize more than ever the 
appalling bomb he was presently to explode. That 
a Banister should become a Papist! It was un- 
thinkable. And down there, half a mile away, was 
the little Norman church, undoubtedly Papist in its 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


2II 


origin, yet undoubtedly now Protestant in every 
stone, in every smell, with all the mild and benev- 
olent machinery of the parish, with its ‘‘ room,” its 
Christmas concerts, its unostentatious relief, its Mr. 
Mortimer and its whiskered Vicar. And all formed 
a picture, more than a picture, a living tableau, 
a scheme of life, in which Papistry would be as 
much out of place as a tragedy-queen in a mothers' 
meeting. 

And the worst of it was that Algy was entirely 
convinced. 

He went straight to his room, sat down on the 
window seat and began to stare at the grass slope 
up which the drive went. He felt he simply could 
not face his mother. It would be on false pretenses. 
He had run from her just now under the spur of 
that instinct. 

For the fiftieth time he began to wonder how 
exactly they would take it. He did not for a mo- 
ment believe that his father would storm like a 
theatrical parent, nor that he would amicably con- 
sent, nor that he would burst into pathetic sobs, and 
Algy’s imagination did not suggest to him any other 
methods of receiving such a shock. It was, in fact, 
unthinkable. There was no precedent. It was as 
if this blameless though passionate Justice of the 
Peace were faced by such a problem as, let us say. 


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the Judgment of Paris; or as if he were required 
at a moment’s notice to pronounce a discourse upon 
Tintoretto’s art. 

As to his mother, he was hardly more adequate to 
judge. Neither tears nor fury would be in the least 
possible, still less was acquiescence. Then what — 

At this moment he saw from his window Mary 
Maple suddenly turn the corner of the shrubbery 
and advance up the gravel sweep, and at the sight 
a dim hope dawned upon him. He would make his 
confession publicly, in the drawing-room. Mary’s 
presence would at least help to make the atmosphere 
equable. Nothing very outrageous could happen 
if she were there. 

But was it fair? He hesitated. Yes, it was per- 
fectly fair. She would be a help, not a hindrance, 
all round. She was sufficiently at home here to be 
treated in this way. After all, he was doing the 
courageous thing in making the announcement at 
all by word of mouth. He was fully justified in 
taking advantage of what cover he found at hand. 

Then once more terror seized upon him, and he 
sat motionless, in no conflict, since his determina- 
tion was established, yet none the less beaten upon 
by fears and images, staring out at the garden grass 
slopes, as the man opened and shut drawers behind 
him in the somber room. 

When the hot water had been set ready and the 


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213 


door closed, he went across and turned the key. 
Then, after an instant’s hesitation, he went upon 
his knees at his bed-side, and buried his head among 
his dress-clothes. 

(Ill) 

Mr. Banister sat in suggestive silence after the 
ladies had gone that evening, glancing up uneasily 
under his bushy eyebrows at his son and heir oppo- 
site. He thought it would be kind to give the boy 
an opportunity of breaking the news first to his 
father. But Algy made no sign. He seemed a 
little white. His hand, Harold noticed, shook ever 
so slightly as he took a cigarette and lighted it at a 
candle. 

When the coffee had gone out the old man made 
an attempt. 

You have something to tell us, my boy, haven’t 
you ? ” 

Algy swallowed in his throat. 

‘‘ Yes,” he said. 

Nothing. Nothing you would like to tell me 
first, eh ? ” 

“ I’d sooner tell it in the drawing-room,” said 
Algy desperately. 

‘‘ What ! Before Miss Maple ? ” 

I. . . . I think so.” 

It gave great relief to the old man to hear his son 


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say that. He too had had vague forebodings of some 
matrimonial tangle, or of something even less repu- 
table. Not that Algy was not steady; he had never 
had a word to say against that; but, well . . . 

one never knew. However, that was settled, and 
Mr. Banister drew upon his cigarette with more 
confidence. A new theory, which had suggested it- 
self secondarily before, now rose clear above the 
horizon. It was sure to be some wild scheme. 
Shooting big game or something. Well, that was 
nothing very serious. Perhaps even it concerned 
the North Pole, or a fiying machine, and here Mr. 
Banister's imagination drooped its weary wings. 

When his cigarette was but half consumed, he 
dropped it into his finger-glass and placed his hands 
on the table in the attitude of a frog. 

Well,” he said, ‘‘shall we—” 

Years afterwards Algy remembered the exact ap- 
pearance of the drawing-room as he followed his 
father into it. 

It was a long room, and they entered it at the 
end. On the right stood a rose-wood table with a 
lamp upon it. On the left were three windows, and 
at the further end, on either side of the great mirror 
were two more, and all were open to the soft sum- 
mer air and light that faded every instant. In the 
corner opposite glimmered a white swan-screen. 


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215 


Another table stood beyond the fire-place in the 
diagonally opposite corner, and before it was drawn 
up a sofa, upon which sat the two women, with 
their backs to the second lamp; and these both 
looked up with a strangely expectant air as the men 
came in. There were a few easy chairs here and 
there, and a dozen little gilded ront-chairs upon the 
stained boards. 

His father went straight across to the high white 
mantelpiece and faced about, instinctively gathering 
his coat-tails beneath him. Harold sat down in- 
stantly behind the rose-wood table, and Algy, ad- 
vancing to the edge of the big Persian hearth-rug, 
stopped, gripping the back of a ront-chair in his 
damp hand. He determined to speak standing. He 
now faced his parents and Mary, a couple of yards 
away from them. 

Now, then, my boy,'' said his father genially. 
“ Algy's got an announcement to make. Miss Maple. 
. . . No, don't move." 

Now, Dick Yolland had strongly advised the com- 
munication to be made first by letter; but I think I 
understand why Algy preferred not, and indeed his 
reasons (though I do not agree with them) for do- 
ing it in this very theatrical manner. He was ter- 
rified, and he wished not to yield to terror in the 
smallest degree. 


2i6 


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But in this instant he had a violent reaction. It 
seemed to him, when faced by actuality, to be almost 
indecent to announce a change of religious convic- 
tion in a drawing-room after dinner. He jerked 
the chair back and sat down. 

Now then, my boy,'’ said his father again, look- 
ing at him curiously. 

No, said Algy to himself; he had begun and he 
would go through with it. He licked his lips, 
glanced at his mother, who was looking at him, and 
at Mary, who dropped her eyes instantly. 

‘Ht . . . it . . . I'm afraid you won’t 

like it, father.” 

‘‘ Come, come, my boy ; let’s have it,” said the old 
man sharply. 

Algy drew a long breath, to steady his heart that, 
like a working machine, pulsated and shook him to 
his finger tips. 

‘‘ It is this,” he said. “I . . . I’m going 

to become a Roman Catholic.” 

The instant he had said the words, he perceived 
how they had gone home. They were as a bullet 
forced into the body of a man, producing a violent 
shock, but no sensation. He perceived how the 
three whom he could see were, for two or three 
seconds, reduced to a state of petrifaction. His 
father’s coat-tails sank from his relaxed hands. His 


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217 


mother remained poised, one hand a little upraised. 
Mary stared straight at him, with her hands in her 
lap. From Harold behind came no sound. 

The tension grew tighter yet. To Algy himself it 
was as a string stretched to breaking, and the pause 
seemed interminable. Then some sound came from 
his mother’s lips, and she dropped her hand. At the 
sound and movement, the old man jerked back into 
consciousness, and Algy intuitively turned to face 
him. 

‘‘ Come, come, my boy. . . And the voice 

checked as if some cord snapped under a strain. 

‘‘ I’m very sorry,” said Algy. I was afraid you 
wouldn’t like it . . . but you see . . .” 

Then he went off in a broken torrent of explana- 
tion. He could hardly tell me what he said; he 
hardly knew. He chattered of his conscience, his 
convictions, his belief that it was better to be 
straightforward. He had not yet been received. 
He had, of course, told his parents first, but nothing 
could change him; he had waited six months; he 
had read both sides. He was conscious of nobody 
but himself pumping out his justification. 

Then across this broke his father’s voice again, 
sharp and irritated : 

Don’t talk nonsense, sir. . . .” 

Algy brought his trembling lips together, staring 
at the ruddy face all pale and ashen. 


2i8 


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** I — I was prepared for that. It’s not nonsense. 
I’m very sorry, father. . . .” 

The twitching face turned from side to side, to 
the women and back to the boy. Then the man took 
a step forward, hesitated, and then went swiftly past 
Algy towards the door by which they had entered. 
At the threshold he stopped, and a sharp sentence 
was rapped out by the shaking voice : 

Come with me, sir.” 

Algy rose, swaying a little, turned and went out 
after his father, seeing Harold’s face look at him 
from the rose- wood table : he passed out, across the 
ante-room and into the room called the library.” 
It was here that he had been flogged as a child. He 
half won'dered in that bewilderment whether he was 
to be flogged again now. 

When he had shut the door behind him he stood 
hesitating. His father, in the shadow cast by the 
shaded lamp, went straight across to the fire-place 
and threw himself into a chair. Then he beckoned 
to Algy and pointed to a chair opposite. Algy sat 
down and gripped the arms. 

Now then,” said the trembling voice, struggling 
to be kind, ‘‘ tell me all about it, my boy.” 

Algy drew a long breath and began. 

I do not propose to describe what he said. But 
he told me afterwards that he had been greatly re- 


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219 


assured by his father’s tone and, further, that while 
speaking he regained his self-possession. He men- 
tioned no names except Dick Yolland’s who had in- 
structed him. I was a priest at Cambridge,” Chris 
was “ a man I know.” Briefly he told his story, he 
recounted a few elementary arguments, he an- 
nounced his certainty and then he sat back once 
more. 

There was complete silence for a minute. Then 
his father cleared his throat. 

‘‘ I see what it is, my boy. You’ve been taken 
in by these fellows. They’re always after eldest 
sons and all that, you know. This Yolland; he’s 
a Jesuit, I suppose? ” 

“ No, he isn’t,” said Algy. 

“ Ah ! I expect he is really. They all are, you 
know. And, of course, they’re as clever as the 
devil. And those other fellows ? ” 

“ They’re converts. They were once Protestants, 
too.” 

'' Ah ! there’s some shady story, depend upon it. 
Well, now, my boy, of course all this is just stuff 
and nonsense. All sensible men know that well 
enough. This Yolland — who is he?” 

“ He’s a priest. He was an old Winchester boy. 
He’s always been a Catholic.” 

Ah ! Well, we mustn’t blame him. He was 
brought up in it, you know. They can’t see any 


220 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


better, you know. Well, now, my boy, you must 
see the Vicar and have a talk with him. We’ll 
soon knock the bottom out of all this — eh, my 
boy?’’ 

I’ll see the Vicar certainly, if you want me to.” 

‘‘ That’s right ; that’s right. I was sure you’d see 
reason. This kind of thing isn’t much in my way, 
you know. Of course I’m a Protestant and all that ; 
and what’s good enough for your father and mother 
is good enough for you, isn’t it, my boy ? ” 

‘Ht . . . it isn’t that, father ; it’s . . .” 

Yes, yes, I know, the young generation and all 
that. But, you know, there are some things we can’t 
stand. Well, well. I’ll ask the Vicar to step up to- 
morrow. Algy, my boy, you won’t say anything 
to your brother, will you ? ” 

“ I must answer him if he asks me questions.” 

“Yes, yes; but you won’t try to make him a 
Papist, will you ? ” 

“ I must answer his questions,” repeated Algy 
steadily. 

“ Well, well — that’ll be all right. See here, my 
boy, I don’t know how your mother’ll be taking 
this. I’ll just go back and tell her you’re behaving 
like a sensible fellow. We’ll soon get all this 
straight. We mustn’t upset her, you know.” 

The old man stood up, and Algy rose with him. 
Even in this half light the boy could see that his 


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221 


father was gravely perturbed, yet struggling to re- 
tain self-possession, and in a moment the horrible 
pathos pierced his heart. Algy knew well enough 
what the end would be, that the Vicar would be 
useless and that these attempts on his father’s part 
to glaze over the situation were worse than useless. 
This violent attempt at kindness was worse than 
all conceivable fury. He knew perfectly well that 
anger and bewilderment were dominant below that 
trembling geniality and that it was only by the 
fiercest efforts that they were restrained, and the 
knowledge of that bewilderment was as a sword of 
poignancy. 

Here, too, was the room where the floggings took 
place — a room with austere bookshelves, closed by 
brass gratings never opened, a room furnished with 
old leather chairs, a couple of kneehqld tables never 
used and a Turkey carpet. It was. just his father 
to him, a kindly man, honest, sincere, impervious 
to argument, bound fast in sentiment and conven- 
tion, convinced that his system of life and thought 
rested upon irrefutable logic. And this man was 
his father whom he loved, who had always been 
good to him, and he had wounded him and would 
wound him again far more fiercely. 

Algy gave one sob. 

His father patted him on the shoulder. 

There, there, old boy. I knew you were a 


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sensible fellow . . . you must think of your 
mother and the rest of us . . . and . . . 
and Theo. . . . Good night, old boy; you’d 

better be off upstairs. I’ll go and see your mother.” 


CHAPTER VI 


(I) 

XT is not my business to defend Algy’s constancy, 
only to relate it. He was aware of a conviction 
that was immovable, a conviction against which 
arguments, which he could not answer, beat in vain. 
But this book is not a treatise on theology. The 
thing that hurt, however, was his father’s kindness. 

It was about a week later that Mr. Banister was 
made really aware of Algy’s position. Harold, 
vaguely excited and gloriously contemptuous, was 
reading the ‘‘ Daily Mail ” in the hall an hour be- 
fore lunch, when the Vicar came through from 
the garden. He was a genial man who hated 
trouble, with minute side-whiskers and a sunburnt 
face, and a trifle inclined to be stout. He paused 
as he saw the boy. Harold jumped up. 

‘‘Is your father in?” asked the clergyman ab- 
ruptly. 

“ In the library.” 

Still he hesitated. Then he went quickly on 
through the swing-door of the ante-room, and Har- 
old sped out into the garden to find Algy. 

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He read the signs correctly. For the third time 
that week Algy had drearily gone down to the 
Vicarage at his father’s request to discuss theology. 
The two were at it half the morning. Then Algy 
had appeared at lunch silent and dispirited, eyed 
furtively by his father. But this was the first time 
that the Vicar had shown signs of agitation. There 
had been a brusque annoyance in his air that re- 
vealed volumes. Harold conjectured that Algy 
had issued an ultimatum at last. 

Outside, the garden lay in the hot summer sun- 
shine, full of sound and color ; and beyond the cedar, 
up and down the terrace, paced a figure in brown 
holland and a Panama hat, leaving a trail of fra- 
grant smoke behind him. Harold went straight 
across. 

He was a good boy, and he was sincerely touched 
by the face of Algy. It was utterly and entirely 
miserable and rather peevish. 

‘‘ Well, old man? ” said Harold. 

Algy’s face twitched as he halted. 

‘‘ Look here,” he said, “ have you come to jaw, or 
what ? ” 

Harold passed his hand through his brother’s 
arm. 

Look here,” he said seriously ; '' of course I 
think you all wrong and all that. But I’m beastly 
sorry for you.” 


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225 


I don’t want your pity,” snapped Algy, horribly 
aware that he was not behaving as a martyr should. 

Harold drove down his resentment. 

I say, old man, you needn’t be beastly with me. 
I swear I haven’t come out to jaw.” The truth was 
that he was consumed with curiosity, and he knew 
he could learn nothing if he snarled back. 

‘‘ Tell me,” he said, as Algy yielded, and the two 
began to walk down the terrace together ; I saw 
old Simkinson just now. What’s he gone to see 
father about ? ” 

“ He’s gone to tell him that I’m going to be a 
Catholic.” 

“ I say ! Really and truly ? ” 

“ Really and truly.” 

‘‘But ... but . . .” 

“ I’m sick of it,” burst out Algy. “ Of course, I 
can’t answer all his beastly books. But he couldn’t 
answer mine. And, after all, I know my own mind, 
I suppose.” 

Harold pondered this. 

“ But I can’t make out why you’re so keen. Why 
isn’t the Church of England good enough? ” 

“ Because it isn’t.” 

“ I can’t make out why you want to change, for 
all that. It seems to me it doesn’t much matter 
either way.” 

“ My good chap, I happen to believe that it does 
15 


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matter a good deal. Look here, Harold — Oh, 
Lord! what’s the good? ” 

Algy had gone through extraordinary misery 
during the last week. That must be his excuse. 
For the first time in his life he had really plunged 
into controversy, and controversy tangled inex- 
tricably with personal questions. It was not that 
his people were not kind; the worst of it all was that 
they were so kind. They treated him with an in- 
dulgence he had never known. His father had 
behaved to him almost as to a man of his own age. 
His mother, after a feeble and pathetic remon- 
strance or two, treated him with astonishing atten- 
tion. Harold had not once made himself offensive, 
and Mary had even gone so far as to write him a 
womanly little note of sympathy, which was de- 
livered one morning with his early tea. He had 
begun to realize for the first time that he was really 
rather an important person and that he could not 
move a finger in the web in which he walked with- 
out interfering violently with other people’s arrange- 
ments. And this was intolerable. He could have 
borne fury far more easily. He could have set his 
teeth and laid his ears back and waited for the storm 
to pass, but it was quite another matter to know 
that he was wounding instead of being wounded in 
the house of his friends. 


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227 


There had been a dreadful little incident on Sun- 
day. As usual he had gone to church with the 
others, but on coming out on this day, his parents 
had turned aside from the path to where a large, 
white marble monument presiding over a white 
marble border, represented that Theodore Banister, 
the beloved eldest son of John and Anna Banister, 
here slept in the Lord awaiting a glorious resurrec- 
tion. There they had stood, the two old folk with 
bent necks, he bareheaded, in his frock-coat and 
gray trousers and white spats, and she in her purple 
bonnet and silk dress, for at least a minute, while 
the two sons stood, ill at ease, with Mary, three or 
four yards away. Then the two had returned, and 
the mother had looked at him once. 

That appeal to Theo’s memory was horrible to 
him. That Theo, of all persons in the world, 
should be thus mutely indicated as a beloved son, 
dying obediently in the faith of his fathers and the 
fear of God — it was dreadful, and it was inex- 
pressibly ludicrous. It was a sentiment to which 
there was no answer, a blow delivered below the 
belt. And Theo of all people! Why it was the 
death of Theo that had first made conventional 
religion seem so wearisomely inadequate. 

Algy had no high thoughts to sustain him. He 
did not in the least move to the sound of spiritual 
trumpets and the light of mystical vision. That was 


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THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


all gone. He knew nothing except that he must be 
a Catholic and that if he recoiled it would be to the 
outrage of all he knew as certainly good and true. 

But he could say nothing of this to anybody. He 
wrote one despairing letter to Dick and another to 
Chris. Dick answered by four pages of encourage- 
ment. Chris did not answer at all, and of the two 
he preferred the latter. Here, then, he was stuck, 
alone and hopeless, and he had just sent in his 
ultimatum to his father. 

Harold remained a minute or two longer, trying 
to make conversation, seeking in a vague fashion to 
get inside the secret of this strange enchantment 
that had swept off his brother; but it was useless. 
Harold was incapable even of conceiving Algy’s 
state of mind. To him religion was a department 
as remote as botany. There were the ceremonies 
and creeds. One performed the one and repeated 
the other, as a man might walk in a garden and say 
over the names of the flowers he knew ; but all had 
nothing whatever to do with real life. Real life 
was doing a large number of interesting things, 
shooting small animals, performing social duties, 
eating, drinking, smoking, sleeping, reading the 
“ Strand Magazine ” and certain volumes of Bad- 
minton, making love to Sybil and behaving decently 
to his own family and other people that he liked. 


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229 


If you had pressed him he would have said that cer- 
tain things were wrong/’ that there was some 
kind of reckoning probable after death and that he 
supposed Christianity was true. He could have no 
more changed his religion than he could have be- 
come a naturalized Portuguese. 

He looked up once or twice towards the garden- 
steps, vaguely expecting to see his father appear, 
wrathful and denunciatory. But nothing happened. 

‘‘ I say, old man, they’re a long time at it. I 
wonder what’s father saying? ” 

‘‘ Lord ! How should I know ? ” 

Harold sniffed reproachfully. He felt so virtu- 
ous himself that he could afford to keep his temper. 

I wonder what’ll happen,” he said, for the 
fourth time. 

All about them lay the sweet summer, as serene as 
if there were no Faith at all to come down like a 
sword between father and son. The pigeons cooed 
in the high trees of the wood half a mile away, the 
butterflies danced and swerved above the flowers. 
Something of the serenity echoed in Harold’s small 
soul, and he wondered again why people couldn’t 
take things as they found them. Algy, on the other 
hand, was reflecting bitterly that if it had been a 
question of his losing all religion whatsoever there 
would not have been half this fuss. 


230 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


The bell rang out from the turret for the serv- 
ants’ dinner, as they turned at the end of the terrace, 
and, as if at a signal, at the head of the garden- 
steps appeared Mr. Banister with the clergyman 
behind him. 

The two brothers stopped dead. 

Look,” said Harold softly, he’s beckoning.” 

The two men disappeared again within, as Algy 
dropped his brother’s arm and went towards the 
house. 

(n) 

It was a family council, aided by the spiritual 
arm, in whose presence Algy found himself as he 
pushed open the half-open door of the library. 

Standing at the fire-place, with one arm resting 
on the mantelpiece, facing the door, but with his 
eyes downcast, stood his father. His face was pite- 
ous to see. 

It was the face of a Conventionalist in the grip of 
a problem. . . . His lips were tightened into 

a line of severity ; his eyes, when he raised them for 
an instant as Algy came in, shot out a dozen emo- 
tions under his heavy brows — tenderness, indigna- 
tion, appeal, resolve. Across the whole passed now 
and again an uncontrollable twitching, and, as Algy, 
his own heart sick and exhausted, went in silence to 
the seat set ready for him, he saw the thick, weather- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


231 


tanned hand of his father shaking violently as he 
fingered a small bronze stag that lay beneath them. 

On the left sat his mother, her eyes, too, downcast 
and her lips trembling. Plainly she had lately col- 
lapsed, so far as she was capable of doing so. Her 
fingers were interlocked in her rather spacious lap. 
He saw she would not utter a word while sentence 
was given. 

Behind Mr. Banister stood the clergyman. Algy 
caught one glimpse of his face, troubled and de- 
pressed. Then he fixed his eyes on his father. 

“ Where is Harold ? ” asked Mr. Banister in a 
deep voice. 

Algy arose hastily, but he was beckoned down 
again, and the bell was rung. Then a pause fol- 
lowed, deadly and sickening, till a man came in. 

I wish to see Mr. Harold here immediately. ’’ 

Again the closing of the door was followed by the 
same pregnant pause. 

Algy strove to marshal his ideas. But it was im- 
possible. He selected one and held on to it, with, 
so to speak, his ears back and his eyes shut, and his 
teeth and hands gripping. It was to the effect that 
he must not swerve in the slightest, nor give the 
faintest hint that delay would be of any use. He 
seemed to himself, on his weaker side, an unmiti- 
gated brute. It appeared to him, now and again, 
that Religion of all kinds was an intolerable, unnat- 


232 


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ural nightmare, a horrible, insidious, corrupting 
thing that broke up families and sucked blood. 
Then again he set his teeth in his resolve and 
waited. 

Harold appeared presently, very pale and bright- 
eyed, breathing quickly. He was motioned to a seat 
behind Algy, and the door was closed. 

Then Mr. Banister left off fingering the stag, 
turned round full face, his hands locked behind his 
back, and began. 

He delivered his little speech as from a public 
platform. Assaulted in his conventions he took 
refuge in them desperately. 

‘‘We are gathered here for a very painful duty, 
and we must not shrink from it. My eldest son told 
me a week ago that he intended leaving the religion 
of his mother and myself, and of the rest of his fam- 
ily for three hundred years, and joining himself to 
the Roman Catholics. I was quite stunned by that 
news — stunned, and, I need not say, terribly 
grieved. But I hoped it was just a fancy and that 
a little thought would put it right. But it seems 
that I was wrong. The Vicar here, who has very 
kindly talked to my son several times, and put be- 
fore him the strongest possible reasons against such 
a terrible step, tells me now that his arguments have 
been of no use and that he cannot even get an 
answer to them. He tells me, further, that my son 


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233 


declines to argue any more and announces his firm 
determination to persist and to be received into the 
Romanist body immediately. I will now ask my 
son if he corroborates this ? ” 

Algy drew a long breath and licked his lips. 

“Yes, father.’’ 

“ You are quite determined? ” 

“ Yes, father.” 

There was a pause. Algy dropped his eyes again, 
and fixed them upon the brass fender at his father’s 
feet. He noticed a gleam of tarnish in one spot. 

“ Very good,” said Mr. Banister, turning again 
slightly and beginning once more to finger the 
bronze stag. “ Then I do not suppose that any 
arguments of mine will prevail. I will say no more 
on the point. But I must now announce the de- 
termination to which I have come, after consulta- 
tion with my wife and the Vicar. I have no inten- 
tion of making my son a martyr for his ideas. I 
know my religion, I hope, better than that. But 
I have to consider the rest of my family and the 
terrible effects that my son’s presence here, as a pro- 
fessed Romanist, might have upon those for whom 
I am responsible. I cannot take it as a light matter,^ 
as some might. My ... my religion is very 
dear to me. My wife and I were married in it, 
our parents on both sides for three hundred years 
have lived by it j my dear son Theo his voice 


234 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


faltered, and for one horrible instant Algy feared 
there would be a collapse. But the old man was 
courageous and strong — ‘‘ my dear son Theo died 
in it, only last year. I cannot therefore, conscien- 
tiously, allow my son, when once he has become a 
Romanist, to live here any longer. When I am 
dead, he will do as he pleases.” (A spasm caught 
Algy by the throat. He seized his lower lip in his 
teeth, and by the acute pain saved himself.) . . . 

I will leave that to his conscience. In the mean- 
while I must ask him to live elsewhere, and for that 
purpose I shall place at his disposal a sum of two 
hundred and fifty pounds per annum. Should he 
come down here, or attempt to live here, after he has 
taken this step, I shall be compelled to withdraw 
that allowance. I wish it to be understood that in 
no sense do I cast him off. We shall meet no doubt 
in other places from time to time. I desire to keep 
up friendly relations with him, for I believe that he 
is more sinned against than sinning. Only, I can- 
not permit his being under the same roof as his 
mother and brother. He will understand, I am 
sure, what pain it gives to me. . . 

Then the horrible thing happened. Convention- 
ality fled and the old man collapsed, dropping his 
head upon his arm on the mantelpiece, and breaking 
out into loud, overpowering sobs. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


235 


At that sight and sound there came upon Algy, 
with a force that all this last week had been unable 
to effect, the temptation to throw all off and come 
back, to spring up and cry that all was a mistake and 
an illusion. Yet something, he recognized after- 
wards, held him in a grip he could not resist. He 
did not know what happened, but he found himself 
at his father^s side, clutching the rough gray sleeve, 
crying out piteously. Behind him was a babble of 
voices, his mother’s, the Vicar’s. 

Then he tore himself free, and ran out, miser- 
ably, blindly, not knowing where he ran. 

(Ill) 

Ten minutes later, he threw himself down in the 
bracken, at the same place where nearly a year be- 
fore he had nursed his indignation and watched 
Harold and Sybil pass together to the garden-gate. 

About him again lay the hot summer, here in 
green and fragrant gloom, punctuated by a million 
tiny flies, up there in cloudless blue. Beneath his 
hands, as he lay outstretched, was the cool moss and 
heather. 

It was the familiar sound of the turret-bell, ring- 
ing to announce luncheon, that brought him back 
again to connected thought, and the first imagina- 
tion that formulated itself plainly before him was 


236 JHE CONVENTIONALISTS 


the sense that the whole affair was unreal and im- 
possible. It was as it had been with him at Theo's 
death. 

Here, about him, was normal life, the life of na- 
ture, beautiful, unconscious, and divine; there, it 
culminated in luncheon. And across this he had 
dragged ruthlessly a harrow of unreality, a series 
of linked thoughts and propositions that might very 
well mean nothing at all. To become a Catholic 
meant to readjust anything, to destroy many 
things, to break up orderly, normal, conventional 
life, to reject experience, to give intolerable pain to 
those to whom obviously, if duty meant anything, 
he owed love and tenderness. And the whole 
foundation of this extravagant and brutal action lay 
in his opinion that a series of thoughts and proposi- 
tions were true. 

Briefly, this was the conflict, and he regarded it 
for a long while. It was, as appeared afterwards, 
the last great fight in his experience, at least for the 
present, between what seemed and what was. On 
one side lay the whole of normal life, on the other 
that strange thing called the Supernatural. He 
perceived that to many people there comes no such 
conflict. The two things live together, like body 
and soul, in comparative harmony. But for him it 
was not so. He saw perfectly distinctly that for 
him it was a choice. He might, with the approval 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


237 


of practically the whole of his world and with that, 
also, of a good deal of his own moral judgment, be- 
come a ‘‘ sensible ’’ boy again, go back to the house, 
sit down at luncheon, go with his father into the 
library afterwards and say that he had been hasty. 
Then, as he knew very well, the next step would 
be that the Vicar would be sent for once more and 
arguments retraced. He knew, perfectly well, that 
this time he would pay more attention to the argu- 
ments, that he would not be able to answer them 
and that, gradually, he would be convinced by them. 
So it would go on, for a week or so, perhaps a 
month, and at the close of it he would go to his 
father once more and tell him he had determined to 
take no step for the present . . . and, at that 

moment, he would have chosen finally for the rest of 
his life. In the future, whenever he felt un- 
comfortable, he would tell himself to be sensible, 
that he had been through the whole question care- 
fully and that life was not long enough to re-open 
it. (Oh ! Algy knew himself well.) 

But, fortunately (at least from my point of 
view) he had always been honest with himself, 
and, after an hour or so, he saw absolutely clearly 
that his course of action would be nothing else than 
an outrage upon his conscience, upon that which 
he knew, though he could not explain why, he was 
bound morally to follow. 


238 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


There, then, lay the two invitations : to be sen- 
sible, or to be conscientious. On one side lay all 
that I have described, in a word. Conventionalism. 
On the other side lay a strange thing, a Some- 
thing that had risen over the horizon, at first 
a cloud no larger than a man’s hand, yet charged 
with fire. It was an appalling thing to consider, 
this Supernatural. He began to see how madness 
lies that way, as it lies, too, in every passion, in 
human love and music and idealism, in fact, in 
everything that is not what is called normal, in 
everything as soon as it looms larger than other in- 
terests. He saw that while it is possible to envy 
those to whom comes no such overwhelming storm, 
yet these are only to be envied as every lower order 
of nature may be envied by that which is above. 
It was a question, he perceived, as to whether it was 
better to be normal and imperceptive and conven- 
tional, or to be abnormal and intuitive and pas- 
sionate. The fire that kindles also burns. Thus, 
then, the Supernatural had come to him. On and 
up it had come, overcasting his sky, storming up 
over the edge of the world. There had been in it 
lightnings and voices and thunderings, the flash 
at Theo’s death, the steady message — the appall- 
ing logic of the Catholic creed, the cold and piercing 
silence of the Carthusians, the sharp voice of Chris- 
topher Dell, the rapid talk of Dick Yolland — all 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


239 


was as one here, and all was significant. He knew, 
with a certitude that I despair of making plain to 
those who have not experienced it, that this was all 
one, that it mingled into one clear and articulate 
Voice, pealing from heaven ringing in his soul. 

Now when he really perceived this, his choice was 
taken. He was an honest boy; and, for a few mo- 
ments, there followed peace. He lay there content, 
lying in the green shadow, passive, without pain 
or desire, knowing himself one, not only with that 
Vision that passes understanding, but with all that 
is made, with nature as with grace, with the flies 
that danced as well as with their Maker. 

And then, suddenly, without warning and with- 
out mercy, the piercing Voice cried again, a fresh 
and insistent invitation that he had silenced once 
before; and, in an instant his peace was gone. 

He sat up, rebellious and despairing, telling him- 
self that God had no mercy, that such a sacrifice was 
intolerable, complaining furiously that he who was 
ready to give so much ought not to be asked to give 
all, demanding a little breathing space. The con- 
flict was upon him again, on a higher circle now 
of that mountain of God on which all men stand 
according to their stature. He stood up; he 
clenched his hands; his eyes were bright with 


240 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


pain and fear ; he took a quick step or two, this way 
and that. Then again he flung himself on his back. 


It was late in the afternoon before he again sat 
up, and I think I should not have liked to see him 
then, for the conflict was not fought. He had 
avoided it, covering his retreat with a multitude of 
arguments, darkening his own outlook with the 
smoke of hfs words. He knew that it was so, 
though I do not think that he knew that he knew it. 

Then he stood up, stretching himself slowly, and 
began very deliberately to step over among the ferns 
towards the glade beneath, externally self-controlled, 
internally troubled. 

It was drawing on towards tea-time; the table 
would be out on the lawn by now. He must go and 
join them. 

As regarded the first step, his mind was now es- 
tablished, and, in a sense, this decision was easier to 
maintain, since he was distracted by the second ques- 
tion. He would say little or nothing to-night, he 
would take his place as usual, he would answer any 
questions that were put to him and to-night, in the 
smoking-room, he would tell his father, simply and 
straightforwardly, that he must go on the next 
morning. 

It was strange as he passed up the garden to see 


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241 


the table there, the glimmer of linen and silver in the 
cool shade, the three or four figures gathered there. 
Again that sense of unreality came upon him — 
the sensation as if he were stepping out of some 
land of dreams back towards solid and experienced 
life. No doubt he was a little pale and strained- 
looking, yet he was outwardly quiet enough, hat- 
less, with his hands in his jacket pockets and his 
brown shoes stepping among the flower-beds. 
Mary was there, he saw, and he noticed her say a 
word quickly to his mother. Harold was on a low 
chair to one side, busying himself with the muffin- 
dish. As Algy came, the sensation deepened ; it was 
like some old home-corning from school, when this 
home was a palace of delight and school lay behind 
him like a sordid dream. He knew, too, that his 
mother would presently express anxiety as regards 
his loss of luncheon. Yet in his deepest conscious- 
ness he never wavered. He knew that hencefor- 
ward he must take this life as the dream and his 
dreams as reality. He was concentrated utterly 
upon this, and determined. Yet, as at Theo’s 
death, he knew that he must behave normally. 

He sat down, without a word on his side or from 
the others, in a basket-chair. 

“ Muffins,” he said, “ when you have quite done 
with them.” 


16 


PART III 


CHAPTER I 

/^N the very last day of July Lady Brasted sat 
in her drawing-room writing. She had just 
come up from luncheon, where she had talked tact- 
fully to her husband about their journey next day 
and had asked him intelligent questions about his 
new motor. On the way upstairs she had sighed 
and smiled sweetly at the thought of the dear, sim- 
ple fellow, and the simple, dear fellow, that instant 
in his study, with hands trembling with annoyance, 
was lighting a large cigar in the hope of soothing 
his temper. But he had managed to control him- 
self wonderfully. 

Lady Brasted had another affair on hand, and 
once more she had summoned Monsignor Yolland, 
who had been so brilliant with Algy Banister, to 
deal with it. She had written a delicate note of 
congratulation to that priest, a week ago, on seeing 
the news in the Tablet,” and had coupled with it 
an earnest request to call upon her upon this Wed- 
242 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


243 


nesday, her last day in town, at half-past two 
o’clock. He was rather late already. She had not 
mentioned that at three the patient would arrive. 
That omission was part of her tactfulness. 

She hastily closed the envelope and directed it, 
as she heard the bell ring. Then she sat down in 
a low chair, arranged her draperies, and took up a 
little book. 

He came in as usual, looking like a big puppy; 
and after a murmur or two she began. 

Dear Monsignor, I must congratulate you upon 
Mr. Algy. You managed it so brilliantly. But 
then, you know, you priests do know human nature 
so much better than — And is the dear boy very 
happy indeed? I have just written to ask him to 
Esher for a week-end in November. Is he very 
happy indeed ? ” 

‘‘ Oh ! he’s all right,” murmured Dick with a rov- 
ing eye. 

‘‘ Really, you know, it’s terrible to think of what 
converts have to suffer! Poor Mr. Banister, I am 
afraid, little knows — ” 

“ Mr. Banister 1 Why, what have you heard ? ” 
Why, it is terrible. Surely Mr. Algy has told 
you? He has been turned out of house and home 
practically penniless; there was a dreadful scene. 
His father — ” 

‘‘ Lady Brasted, do let me tell you the facts. It 


244 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


seems to me Mr. Banister has behaved rather well. 
He has given Algy quite a decent allowance.’^ 

But. . . . ’’ 

Indeed, it is so. It’s quite true he won’t have 
him home, at least for the present; it seems he’s 
afraid of some younger brother or other. But he’s 
got Algy an excellent place in the City, and, as I 
say, has given him a good allowance.” 

‘‘ But surely, turning him out of the house — ! ” 

I think we mustn’t judge him hardly. You 
know, Mr. Banister is really rather a religious man 
according to his lights. It’s been a frightful 
shock.” 

Oh ! well ; but surely Mr. Algy must feel it ter- 
ribly?” 

‘‘ Certainly he doesn’t like it. But I assure you 
he doesn’t consider himself persecuted. Nor do I.” 

‘‘ The dear boy ! ” murmured Lady Brasted. 
“ And what a support you must be to him ! ”* 

Dick blinked solemnly. He did not know what 
else to do. 

“ He’s coming to Amplefield with me next week,” 
he said feebly. 

‘‘ Well, it’s all very wonderful and beautiful,” 
cooed Lady Brasted. And to think that he’s eld- 
est son, and all that. . . . But there’s another 

matter I wanted to consult you about too ; you man- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


245 


aged the last so well. Have you ever heard of Miss 
Maple?” 

“ Eh? ” said Dick, rather startled. 

I see you have. Well, you know, she's a dear 
friend of mine. I have known her, oh ! — years 
and years. And she's almost become a kind of com- 
panion to Mrs. Banister. So it seems as if there 
was a Providence in it all. Well, Monsignor, I’m 
afraid she's very unhappy.'' 

Dick eyed her. 

“ Very unhappy,'' she continued smoothly. ‘‘ I 
think her mind’s working. This step of Mr. Algy’s 
caused her to think. Oh ! I’ve often talked to her — 
carefully, of course.” 

Well?” 

And there are other complications too. You've 
heard of Theo ? ” 

I have.” 

“ Well, I needn't say any more. But I think Mr. 
Algy is mixed up in it now too.” 

But what can I do ? ” murmured Dick in be- 
wilderment. 

'' I thought you might just talk to her a little. 
About the Church. ... I'm sure you under- 
stand.” 

Lady Brasted, how can I, possibly? I’ve never 
seen her. How could I be supposed to know ? ” 


246 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


“ My dear Monsignor, you need know nothing. 
Nothing at all. You see, it would all be so very 
suitable and beautiful in all ways. And I am sure 
she is sincere. Just a few words.” 

I can’t possibly,” burst out Dick. 

Surely, Monsignor, a little tactful conversation 
about the Church. That is absolutely all. Who 
knows what it might lead to? ” 

Dick pursed his lips. He hated all this unspeak- 
ably. It was not that he was not zealous; it was 
the extraordinary disingenuousness of his hostess 
that troubled him; and he hated to be managed. 
While Lady Brasted flowed on, in small, slippery 
sentences that told him far more than did the words 
which composed them, he was looking desperately 
for an escape. He saw quite well what was wanted. 
It was that Mary Maple should be allured into the 
Church and that Algy should be compelled to marry 
her. He was to do the first, and Lady Brasted the 
second. This was bad enough; but what compli- 
cated it far more was that he knew the state of 
Algy’s feelings. And he knew, further, that in the 
boy’s present mood he might be led only too easily 
in the direction Lady Brasted wanted. It would 
be a kind of escape from the conflict. During these 
few minutes he hated Lady Brasted with indescrib- 
able passion ; he wanted to run amuck ; to get up, to 
tell her what he thought, to smash her Italian pic- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


247 


tures and her Della Robbias into small fragments 
and stamp out of the house. But that would 
scarcely be priestly. A bell rang, and he did not 
notice it. He was listening to Lady Brasted’s ac- 
count of a letter Mrs. Banister had written to her 
on the subject of Algy’s conversion. Then the 
door was opened. 

“ Miss Maple, my lady.’' 

Dick had never seen her before; and he was al- 
most too angry to see her now. But, on reflection 
afterwards, he remembered that he had been aston- 
ished at her youthfulness. There came forward 
into the room a very beautifully dressed young lady, 
in a white veil and big hat. She looked perfectly 
charming. She had very bright eyes and coils of 
brown gold hair. She carried herself with extreme 
grace and dignity. Then she was wrapped in Lady 
Brasted’s arms, while Dick was considering how 
he could best get away. 

Then the introductions were performed, and he 
took up his hat. 

‘‘ Em afraid I ought to be going. Lady Brasted.” 

Why, you said you could give me an hour. Mon- 
signor,” cried that lady with large, innocent eyes. 

And you’ve hardly been here ten minutes. Please 
sit down again. I particularly wanted you to meet 
Miss Maple.” 

Dick sat down again. What else could he do ? 


248 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


“ I’m so glad you wjere able to come, Mary dear. 
It’s our last day in town, you know. George and I 
leave for Scotland to-morrow. And I’m so glad 
Monsignor Yolland could just manage this after- 
noon too. He’s very busy, I know. All our priests 
are.” 

Then began that flow of small ecclesiastical con- 
versation that Dick knew by heart, and which yet 
was rather effective. Lady Brasted did manage 
somehow to convey an idea of the Catholic Church 
that seemed to impress and attract certain kinds of 
minds. She talked like a child wrapt in the seren- 
ity of a supernatural home. Priests were, without 
exception in her conversation, mysterious, holy, 
paternal persons, unfathomably learned, unutterably 
tender and attractively ascetic. Dick, too, was 
forced to assent now and again to undeniable truths 
which she uttered, and he did so in the tone of a 
sulky boy. He was the more sulky as he saw that 
Miss Maple was apparently interested in him. He 
caught her bright eyes once or twice dwelling on 
his patch of purple silk, on his rather large waist- 
coat and boots. More than that, there was unmis- 
takable humor in her face which tended to melt 
him. He thought she understood the situation. 

Insensibly his anger grew less, for he was a 
humane and impressionable man. One thing alone 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


249 


kept up his stiffness, and that was the thought of 
Algy. Finally the talk turned upon him. 

‘‘ Have you seen anything more of Mr. Algy, 
Mary? ” asked Lady Brasted. “You know it was 
Monsignor Yolland who received him into the 
Church.’’ 

Mary turned to him rather quickly. 

“ Indeed, I did not know that.” 

Dick assented. (He was beginning to behave 
better. ) 

“ I thought it so brave of dear Mr. Algy to face 
his father like that. You know he told him straight- 
way, face to face.” 

“ I was there,” said Mary quietly. 

“ Why, of course you were, my dear. I had for- 
gotten that. Tell us about it.” 

Mary dropped her eyes. 

“ He came into the drawing-room. Yes, he was 
very brave, though — though he looked such a boy. 
He said it straight out to us all. I wanted to go 
away, but they wouldn’t let me.” 

“ And how did they take it ? ” 

Mary started. 

“ Oh ! I scarcely noticed. Yes, of course I did. 
They were simply bewildered, I think. Then Mr. 
Banister took Mr. Algy away with him into the 
library. I went away a couple of days afterwards.” 


250 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


There was something in her tone, extraordinarily 
slight, which made the priest glance up at her rather 
sharply. He could not have put his impression into 
words at the time. But he began to attend rather 
more carefully. 

I have just written to ask dear Mr. Algy to 
come down to us at Esher, in November, for a week- 
end. I always make up my parties long beforehand, 
you know. I wonder whether you would come to 
meet him? And you too. Monsignor, if you can 
get away ? 

“ I shall be delighted,” said Mary. 

Dick said he wasn’t sure. Might he leave it un- 
til later? And meantime he was thinking furi- 
ously. 

Then Lady Brasted began in earnest. She began 
to talk about the Church again; then she moved on 
to Monsignor Yolland himself — his Church in 
Soho — she even mentioned the hours of the masses 
and the time for Benediction at which Monsignor 
always preached himself. Dick could preach no 
more than a cow, and he knew it.- He wondered 
what on earth she was at. But she flowed on, con- 
tentedly enough. She hardly breathed Father Bad- 
minton’s name, and Mary seemed to listen content- 
edly too, to Dick’s astonishment. Finally, she posi- 
tively said that she must find her way to Soho. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


251 


“ I am away for a month/’ said Dick hurriedly, 
hardly knowing what he said. 

“ When you come back then,” smiled Lady Bras- 
ted inexorably. ‘‘ Shall you be at Amplefield ? ” 

‘‘ Yes,” said Dick; ‘‘my holiday begins on Mon- 
day.” 

Then he took up his hat hastily, made his fare- 
wells and fled to think it out. 

In the street he formulated one sentence. 

“ The worst of that woman,” he said to himself, 
“ is that she’s generally perfectly right.” 

Lady Brasted turned to her friend. 

“ A charming man, isn’t he ? I was sure you 
would like him.” 

“ I like him very much,” said Mary seriously, 
staring at the fire-place. 

“ I wanted you to see one of our old Catholic 
priests. His father was a convert, you know; but 
somehow Monsignor has quite got the air. And 
he isn’t at all a clever man, as you can see — just a 
blunt, straightforward man, but so holy. He is do- 
ing a wonderful work among the foreigners in 
Soho.” 

Mary nodded. She seemed to be thinking very 
deeply. 

“ Now do go and hear him preach, my dear. 
You know we’ve often talked about those things. 


252 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


And he’s got a beautiful place, down near us at 
home. He’s put his cousin in charge, but it belongs 
to him. . . . Mary, my dear, is anything the 

matter ? ” 

Mary turned to her suddenly; and all the humor 
had left her face. 

‘^Oh! I’m tired . . . tired,” she cried; and 

then: “No, no; it’s nothing.” 

“ My dear,” said Lady Brasted, “ I understand 
perfectly. We will have a good talk some day.” 

Mary looked at her in silence. 

“ Oh ! Annie,” she said, “ I wonder if you do.” 


CHAPTER II 


(I) 

TT was a serious business, and Dick hurried along 
with very little prelatical dignity and with a 
great deal of perturbation. It seemed to him that 
something must be done, and he had not an idea 
what. 

First, there was Algy. That young man was 
unhappy, and there was a plot against him. He 
was certainly unhappy. There was none of that ex- 
traordinary buoyancy about him that there ought 
to have been. Dick had seen him a dozen times 
and saw plainly that he had not really got his con- 
fidence. 

Secondly, there was Miss Maple, and, in spite of 
Lady Brasted’s atmosphere, he had become inter- 
ested in her. There was something rather pathetic 
about her, and he did not know what it was. She 
had not said much, nor had Lady Brasted, in so 
many words ; but Lady Brasted had supplied a sug- 
gestive prelude in the few minutes before the other 
arrived, and Mary herself had had a curious air 
about her. She had not sulked as people usually 

253 


254 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


did under Lady Brasted’s attentions. She had eyed 
Dick as if she were appraising him. She had had 
an odd tone in her voice once or twice. 

However, Algy was his first business. 

At the corner of Trafalgar Square he stopped and 
began to bite his nails. (It is a bad habit he has in 
moments of great anxiety.) 

He reflected that there was one single ray of light 
in the situation, and that was that Algy was coming 
down to Amplefield in the following week. But this 
ray was at least discolored, if not obliterated, by 
Dick’s consciousness that he had not an idea 
what he should say to him when he got him 
there. 

The upshot was that he stepped into a telegraph 
office and sent two telegrams. One of them was 
addressed to me. I received it when I came in for 
tea. It ran as follows : 

‘‘ Come Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Most 
important. Hope Chris there. Yolland.” 

Then he went on his way. 

I, too, was a little uncomfortable about Algy; 
but, though it was not in the least to my credit, I 
happened to understand a little better than Dick 
what was the matter. But, on the other hand, I 
knew nothing about the Miss Maple incident. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


255 


However, when I read the wire, I guessed that it 
concerned that young man and, after making an 
arrangement or two, wired an acceptance. 

It was not that I was at all afraid as to Algy’s 
constancy in the Faith. About that I was su- 
premely satisfied. But he had not given me his con- 
fidence any more than he had to Dick, and I knew 
that there must be something behind I did not quite 
know. I connected it, of course, with Algy^s voca- 
tion. I had seen cases before where a life had been 
spoilt. . . . But it was no good thinking about 

it ; and I put the thing away. 

On the Tuesday morning I received an almost 
illegible postcard from Dick, with the Amplefield 
postmark, of which I gathered the tenor to be that 
I was to come down by the five-seventeen. Another 
sentence was entirely undecipherable. So until I 
stepped out at Marlesdon Junction at nineteen min- 
utes past five, I was unaware that Chris was in the 
same train with me. There, however, I ran into 
him and Dick simultaneously. 

Chris looked extremely well and cheerful in his 
gray flannel suit, with his pointed beard and his 
vivid black eyes. 

You ass ! cried Dick. ‘‘ Do you mean to say 
you traveled separately?” 

My good man,” I said, I hadn’t an idea that 
Chris — 


256 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


“ Why, I told you. Didn’t you get my post- 
card?” 

‘‘ I got a postcard which I suppose was from you. 
I could read nothing on it but the words, Five-seven- 
teen.” 

Oh, well — come on.” 

There was a wagonette waiting for us. The lug- 
gage was piled in beside the groom, and we three 
climbed in behind. Then we started, and in three 
minutes had our heads together like pictures of Guy 
Fawkes and his companions. 

We learned the following facts. First, that Algy 
was to arrive in time for lunch next day and was to 
stay at least a week. Second, that Dick had seen 
him on the Sunday and had extricated from him 
the remark that he was to go down to Esher in No- 
vember and that he knew Miss Maple was to be 
there. Third, we received a full account of the in- 
terview with Lady Brasted and all her observations, 
expressed and unexpressed. Chris said very little. 
I did all the necessary questioning. He nodded his 
head three or four times and finally sat back as if 
rather bored. 

Well?” cried Dick. 

Chris said nothing, and I looked at him. 

“ Look here, you know,” said Dick, this is really 
rather serious. You must tell me what to say. I 
can’t do these things, you know. If he marries 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


257 


Miss Maple — and, you know, I quite think he 
might in his present mood — well — don’t you 
think so ? ” 

He looked at me, and I nodded. And I did not 
in the least want him to marry Miss Maple. 

“ She’s eight years older than he is, at least. Be- 
sides, I ... I don’t think I trust her. I’m 
beastly sorry for her. There’s something the mat- 
ter, I don’t know what. Chris say something.” 

‘‘ Dick,” said Chris, ‘‘ you must give me time to 
think. I don’t see my way out yet.” 

He said this very seriously, and Dick fell back a 
little. 

Well, so long as you tell me . . . ” he grum- 

bled. Look, there’s Mrs. Stirling.” 

We took off our hats to the Vicar’s wife, and 
presently turned into the lodge gates in silence. 

Amplefield is a large, comfortable, unbeautiful 
Georgian house. It was Dick’s by inheritance, but 
a priest cannot do much with a country estate, so 
he had installed a penniless cousin and his wife here, 
to their great satisfaction, and only came down oc- 
casionally himself. At present the cousin and his 
wife were away. No doubt in time they or their 
children would inherit it. 

We had tea on the lawn, and once more we talked 

about Algy. We dined on the terrace, looking out 
17 


258 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


upon the darkening meadows, between large stone 
vases that dripped with nasturtiums, with an electric 
lamp on the table, against which moths blundered 
in vain, and still we talked of Algy. Chris did not 
say a great deal, but he seemed to listen with atten- 
tion and put shrewd questions now and again. 
When coffee had gone and smoking had begun, for 
the first time he opened his mouth in oracles. 

'' Now, look here,” he said. You’ve asked us 
down here to consult about Algy Banister. We all 
know him pretty well, in different ways, and we’re 
all interested in him. Now Dick has said his say, 
and you ” — he nodded to me — “ you haven’t said 
half of what you think. Will you finish first, or 
shall I?” 

“ You,” I said; and sat back to listen. 

Chris crossed one knee over the other, put his 
hands behind his head and began. 

“ First of all, I think we’ve gossiped too much — 
myself included. We mustn’t get fussy and man- 
aging. We aren’t running this affair — it’s Algy. 
At the same time I don’t know what’s the good of 
us if we don’t do what we can. You can’t let a 
man drift. 

But there’s this to be considered. Are we first 
perfectly sure that a marriage with Miss Maple isn’t 
the best possible thing for him and her too? (Of 
course I don’t know her.) Well, I’m not. But, 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


259 


on the other hand, we are all perfectly sure, I take 
it, that he ought not to marry her simply in order 
to escape from his Vocation; still less ought he to 
be jockeyed into it. But that, if I understand 
rightly, is precisely what Dick thinks Lady Brasted 
is going to try to do. Now we all know that Algy 
once thought himself in love with Miss Maple. 
Now that’s a dangerous state to be in. I know it 
from experience.” (He paused for an instant.) 

It was in love, in fact, that I made such an ass of 
myself. Remember, Dick ? ” 

Dick nodded gravely, his chin on his hand, on 
the opposite side of the table. 

“ Well, then,” continued Chris slowly, ‘‘ all this 
being so, it seems to me probable that, unless we do 
something, Algy may be made to marry Miss Maple, 
always supposing that she will have him. . . . ” 

‘‘Oh! she’ll have him,” I said. 

“ . . . Always supposing that she will have 

him,” continued Chris imperturbably. “ You see, 
he can’t go home ; that makes a man feel lonely. He 
once was, or thought he was, in love with her. 
Then there’s the possibility that she may become a 
Catholic, and, finally, there are Lady Brasted’s tol- 
erably clear hints that she thinks it would be an 
excellent thing and Dick’s statement that Algy is 
going to Esher knowing that Miss Maple’s to be 
there. Have I summed it up so far ? ” 


26 o 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


Perfectly/’ said Dick. 

“ Well,” went on Chris tranquilly. ‘‘ I’m not go- 
ing to lift a finger to push this boy towards what we 
all have thought might be his Vocation. If a mis- 
taken marriage can be purgatory, mistaken Celibacy 
is Hell. Personally I believe that it is his Voca- 
tion, but very possibly I’m wrong, and it’s literally 
playing with fire, the hottest and the most real fire 
in existence, to meddle in these affairs. It burns 
cruelly. I know that by experience. But what I am 
prepared to do is to counteract, so far as I can. Lady 
Brasted’s plans. It seems to me that that’s only fair 
to Algy. He must be really free.” 

He paused again. 

“ Yes,” cried Dick and I simultaneously. 

‘‘Well, what?” said Chris, still staring at the 
stars. 

“ What are we to do ? ” 

“ I haven’t the slightest idea yet,” said Chris. 

(n) 

At a quarter to one on the following day we 
three were sitting once more on the terrace, wait- 
ing for the sound of wheels. Dick looked nervous ; 
I felt it. Chris alone was serene. 

He had refused to talk any more about Algy the 
night before. He had repeated that he had not the 
faintest idea how to proceed; that it was enough 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


261 


that we were agreed upon what was to be done; 
that all else must wait until there were further data. 
For the collection of these data we had both 
arranged to remain at Amplefield for one more 
night. 

“How’ll you find out?” asked Dick for the 
fourth time that morning. 

“ I have no idea,” said Chris 

Then there was the hiss of wheels beyond the 
house; Dick got up and hurried indoors; and two 
minutes later they came out together. 

I had not seen Algy since his reception into the 
Church, and I looked at him carefully. There was 
no kind of doubt that the boy was undergoing a 
strain of some sort. He was a little pale under the 
eyes, a line came and went over them too easily 
and his lips were apt to compress themselves sud- 
denly. His manner was subdued and undefinably 
grown-up. 

He nodded pleasantly to us, with rather a de- 
tached air, and sat down in a long chair. It was 
plain enough that even if we wished to manage him, 
we should find some difficulty. He crossed one leg 
over the other, tilted his hat forward and was silent. 

The absurd side of it all struck me forcibly as we 
sat there waiting for the gong. Here were we, 
three grown men, all intensely interested in the ca- 


262 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


reer of a rather uninteresting boy, all gravely con- 
cerned as to his future. For, in all outward mat- 
ters, even in matters of heart and head, Algy was 
uninteresting. He was not particularly clever; he 
was not attractively impulsive; his manners were 
not especially anything. He had done nothing 
great; he never would; nothing particularly impor- 
tant turned upon him. Yet there was something 
in him that mattered. I cannot express it better 
than that. I knew that I for one, and Dick and 
Chris for two others, cared tremendously what be- 
came of him. He had the sort of significance that, 
let us say, a delicate child possesses that, unknown 
to himself, is heir to a dukedom. Everything mat- 
ters — his health, his moods, his instincts, his faults, 
his virtues — far more than they seem to matter in 
the son of a coachman. To us three, Algy had that 
sort of interest; we felt that huge things depended 
on him. It was disconcerting too, to notice his 
rather peevish air. And there we sat in the hot 
August day, shaded by the great ugly house, star- 
ing out at the flowers and rolling park and the plan- 
tations, pretending to be sleepy or lazy, and all 
thinking hard of one thing. 

Algy seemed a little astonished to see us all. He 
had not expected us both, he said, and Dick’s as- 
sertion that he had warned him of it, did not re- 
move that air of slight suspicion. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 263 


Then we talked of this and that and the other — 
of the train service between Marlesdon and London, 
of the extreme warmth of the day, of the compara- 
tive advantages in such weather of gray flannel and 
brown holland. You were cooler in the one, and 
felt cooler in the other, we decided. 

It was not until lunch was half over that we made 
any advance at all. Dick made his first step. 

Look here,^^ he said, what’s to be done this 
afternoon ? ” 

We were silent. 

‘‘ I’ll tell you the possibilities,” he said. There’s 
a lake in which boating can be done. There’s a ter- 
race which can be sat upon. There’s a motor of my 
cousin’s in the stable; there’s a wagonette and a 
pair of horses. There’s a group of pine trees in 
which pigeons live; but I don’t expect they’ll be 
home till late. That’s the lot.” 

We were still silent. 

“ You,” he said, nodding at me. 

“ Lake,” I said instantly. 

"Algy?” 

wish I could,” he said, ‘‘but I get cramp. 
What about the motor ? ” 

“All right. That’s two. Chris?” 

“ I think motor. What’ll you do? ” 

Dick paused an infinitesimal moment, as Algy 
glanced sideways at Chris. 


264 the conventionalists 


“ I think lake too” he said. “ Then the motor 
at three ? Where’ll you go ? ” 

How about seeing Foxhurst? ” said Chris. 

Now a certain scene in Chris’s not very reputable 
past life had been ended at Foxhurst, and for an 
instant Dick sat dumb. Then he recovered himself. 

“ Very good,” he said. ‘‘ It’s worth seeing, Algy. 
Such a place ; a moat, a courtyard, a king’s 
room. ...” 

Are they away? ” interrupted Chris. 

Every blessed soul except the chaplain. It’s an 
old Catholic house, Algy. It’ll just give you an 
idea. . . . Well, then, three o’clock.” 

Chris nodded. 

Now, upon my word, this had not been rehearsed. 
Chris had refused to rehearse anything. He is the 
most consistent believer in Providence I have ever 
met. He had said two or three times with great 
emphasis that he was not going to fuss and arrange. 
Matters were not brought to satisfactory conclu- 
sions by such methods. He had refused to make 
any plans as to how the day was to be spent. If 
it was intended by the Authorities that we were to 
accomplish anything, circumstances would arrange 
themselves. And they had, with a vengeance. 

I sat through the rest of lunch in a daze. It was 
not that I at all understood how things would work 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 265 


out; but at least I saw a very pretty train of pow- 
der laid. First, there was the fact that Algy and 
Chris were to spend the afternoon together, and 
next, there was the fact that Foxhurst, which had 
occurred to none of us, was to be the scene of their 
journey. Now Foxhurst had also been the scene 
of the stupendously important crisis of Chris’s life. 
It was there that his real conversion had taken 
place; he had worked as a gardener there; he had 
had his pride and his posing knocked out of him 
there, in spite of Dick’s meddling; he had actually 
attempted suicide there, and had been saved from 
it at the last possible moment by that amazing man 
John Rolls, whose mantle had fallen so strangely 
upon him. 

Now I did not see how Chris would use all this, 
particularly as Algy’s mood did not seem promis- 
ing; but I knew him well enough to know that he 
would use it. So I sat and drank my coffee in si- 
lence. 

We went out on to the terrace presently again, 
and Algy heard a good deal more of the glories that 
he was to behold. Dick, in a rather feverish man- 
ner, I thought, and certainly at great length, de- 
scribed pretty nearly every room in the house ; while 
Chris sat by smiling gently to himself. 

At five minutes to three we heard the panting of 


266 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


the engine. Dick went through the house with them 
to see them off. 

Three minutes later he burst back again, and 
shook me violently by the shoulder. 

‘‘Good Lord,’' he said, “don’t you see?’^ 

Two minutes later I said that I saw. 

(Ill) 

Dick and I went down to bathe that afternoon, 
but I have no distinct recollection of the experience. 
We talked spasmodically, when we were not other- 
wise engaged, and more than once I was again 
stricken into silence by the absurdity of the whole 
affair. I can only repeat that I was more excited 
than I had been by anything for a long time, and 
yet when the thing was put into words it was so 
entirely inadequate. All that I can say is that I 
felt as I suppose a stable-boy must feel when the 
pride of the stable is on his trial. I knew, in a 
manner I cannot describe at all, that underneath 
that uninteresting Algy there was something 
unique in my own small experience. It was genius 
that I perceived there, and genius in a plane of 
which not one in a thousand people takes any ac- 
count at all. I perceived, I say, and later events 
are beginning to show whether I was right or no, 
that here was a soul endowed with certain faculties 
which, to my mind, are sublimely the highest in ex- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 267 


istence. And the excitement turned on the point 
as to whether these would be allowed to exercise 
themselves or no. That was all. 

We came up with our towels about five o’clock; 
but there was no sign of the motor. We sent for 
tea and drank it, and talked and waited. At six 
the Angelus rang: at half-past six we heard the 
panting come up the drive. We waited. Then a 
man came out to say that the motor had returned 
with the message that the two gentlemen would 
walk back. Then we waited again. 

We hardly said anything at all. Dick went and 
got his office-book presently, but I could see that he 
was all alert for any sound. His eyes rolled round 
occasionally, as do a dog’s who is resting and yet 
is absorbed in his master’s movements. For myself, 
I sat staring and thinking. I would finish my office 
after dinner, I said to myself. 

Then suddenly, without warning, Chris came up 
the steps from the kitchen-garden and, without a 
word, sat down abruptly. 

‘‘ Well ? ” whispered Dick. 

He’s gone for a walk alone,” said Chris with- 
out moving. He’ll be back for dinner. He’s 
given me some messages for you. He wants no 
sort of reference to be made to his affairs, either to- 
night or at any future time, until things are settled.” 

We nodded together. 


268 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


Now listen,” he said. “ He’s given me leave to 
tell you the whole thing.” 

Chris leaned forward, joining his fingers. 

‘‘We went to Foxhurst. We saw all over it. 
Then we inquired for the chaplain and found he was 
out. Then we asked to see his house. We went 
in, and I pointed out to Algy various things, the 
room I slept in, the hook over the window, the stair- 
case where you and Rolls stood when I was prepar- 
ing to hang myself. I didn’t explain it; I only 
asked him to notice all those things. He hardly 
said anything at all. I could see he was beginning 
to be uncomfortable. He was also rather suspi- 
cious. You noticed that, of course. 

“ When we came out, I asked him if he’d mind 
walking home as I’d rather a long story to tell him. 
He said all right, though I could see he didn’t want 
to. We sent the motor off, and we started to walk 
by the fields. 

“ Well, you can guess. I started by saying that 
I knew quite well what he thought; he thought it 
was a plan to manage him. I asked him if that 
wasn’t so. He looked rather taken aback, but con- 
fessed it was so. I acknowledged the fact, and then 
went ahead. I told him the whole thing from be- 
ginning to end ; about my own beastly pride, my self- 
indulgence — pretty well everything that I decently 
could. I told him all about Annie; all about my 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 269 


posing, and at last I told him every single detail 
of that last night — all I felt as I was getting the 
rope ready: all about the interruption — the whole 
thing. Finally, I told him what Rolls said to me. 
I must confess that I got more moved than I have 
been for a long time when I told him that. I could 
see him getting paler and paler as I rubbed it in 
about self-deception and all the damnable nonsense 
there is in people who fight against the Will of God. 
I just said it as plainly as I knew how. Then at 
the end I turned on him. 

I said I was only a layman, that I didn^t want 
to pry into secrets, that nobody did; but that it 
seemed to me, and you two — oh ! yes, I gave you 
both away — that he was resisting light. I said I 
wouldn't, for the sake of my own soul, let alone his, 
urge him for one single second to do what his con- 
science didn’t wholly and entirely tell him to do; 
but that I was sick of seeing people — Catholics, 
too — just chuck away their life out of cowardice 
or pride or stupidity. Then I told him plainly that 
the only thing that mattered in this world or the 
next was to do the Will of God. 

‘‘ Well, he began by being conventional. He 
warded me off, saying that it was extremely diffi- 
cult, wasn’t it? to know what was best to do; that, 
of course, he wished to do the right thing, but that 
it was beginning to seem to him that it was perhaps 


270 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


better just to be normal and to live an ordinary 
life — oh ! you know : all the things that we are al- 
ways palming off on one another. When he’d quite 
done I said just that.” 

What did you say exactly ? ” interrupted Dick. 

Chris smiled. 

“ To be accurate, I said, ‘ Just so. Now let’s 
have what you really think.’ Well; I got home 
at last. We were sitting on the grass by now, and 
he was chewing a long piece of grass. Then, quite 
suddenly, after a particularly offensive remark of 
mine, he caved in altogether and rolled round on 
to his face without another word. (Oh! by the 
way, he had called me a — a damned bully, two 
minutes before.) I told him not to behave like a 
woman. He got up at last, and as soon as he could 
speak he told me that we were all perfectly right, 
that he was a cur, and a fool and that he would 
go off and be a Carthusian to-morrow.” 

‘‘ Good Lord! ” ejaculated Dick. 

‘‘Wait. I pulled him up at that. I said that 
that wasn’t at all the point. I asked him how he 
dared think that he had just got to go and that he’d 
be taken. I said there were a dozen things to con- 
sider first; his people; his duty to his estate — all 
kinds of things. Then I taxed him with Miss Ma- 
ple, and, I must say, he was straightforward enough 
there. Oh! he’s straight all through. He said 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


271 


that he had been in love with her in a sort of way 
and that he was fooling with the thought of it even 
now . . . that he had practically made up his 

mind to marry her if she’d have him, simply in or- 
der to get away from the hell he’s had in his heart 
at the thought of what his real vocation was. (We 
were right, you see.) I tell you, he’s had a terrible 
time since his reception. He’s as sensitive to God 
as a flower to the sun. It’s been torment. 

Oh ! he shirked it for all the usual reasons — terror 
of the loneliness, the mortiflcations, all the rest. 
Well, I began to encourage him then. I said that 
that was all the merest moonshine, that if he had a 
vocation and corresponded with it, there was such 
happiness waiting for him as the rest of us can’t 
get till we get to heaven. . . . Well; so we 

went on. He got quiet at last, about a mile from 
here, out there across the fields. But he said he 
couldn’t face you yet. Mind not one word when 
he comes back. We’d better have some bridge this 
evening, Dick.” 

That was clever of you — about acknowledg- 
ing that it was partly true we wanted to manage 
him,” I mused aloud. 

‘‘ Clever ! ” snapped Chris. '' It was simply hon- 
est.” 

But, but what next ?...”! ejaculated, sud- 
denly remembering myself. 


272 


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‘‘ Ah ! yes. Fd forgotten. Well, the next thing 
is his people.” 

Dick shook his head dolefully. 

‘‘ Look here,” said Chris ; “ it’s no good being de- 
spondent. It’s got to be done.” 

‘‘Will he go there?” I asked breathlessly. 

“ Why, of course not,” snapped Chris almost 
rudely; “and he won’t write either. No: I’ll tell 
you what we’ve settled.” 

“ Well?” 

Chris smiled at our anxious faces. 

“ Don’t be alarmed. We three have got to go. 
Not yet. I’ll let you know when.” 

There was an awe-struck pause. 

“ What about Miss Maple ? ” asked Dick pres- 
ently. 

“ One thing at a time,” said Chris. 


CHAPTER III 


(I) 

A LGY awoke early on the morning of the first 
Saturday in November, and, finding sleep im- 
possible, lit a candle, took up a book which he pres- 
ently laid aside again, and began to doze sometimes 
open-eyed, staring at the window, sometimes half- 
drowsing. His bedroom was singularly unsuited 
for romance. It was what is called a comfortable 
apartment for a single gentleman, and he paid for 
it the excessive charge of twelve shillings a week. 
He had done what he could, but there were some 
things he dared not do. He dared not remove the 
photograph of the landlady’s father, which was ex- 
actly like all other photographs of all other land- 
ladies’ fathers and which hung over his mantel- 
piece, nor the black hearthrug resembling the hide 
of an effeminate retriever. For the rest, the room 
was fairly inoffensive. He had ventured to take 
down a text, in a frame, that hung over his bed and 
to replace it by a small brass crucifix. His bed was 
of iron and tarnished brass, his chest of drawers, 
his wash-hand stand and his wardrobe, of mahog- 

273 


18 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


274 


any. A new bath stood in the middle of his floor 
upon a new bath-mat. He had found it necessary 
to buy these things, since the other single gentleman 
in the house required the only bath possessed by 
/the house every Saturday night, which made diffi- 
culties on Sunday morning. Such was Algy’s hired 
abode in Kensington ; and, as he lay there, reflecting 
that he was due at Esher this evening and listening 
to the workmen’s trains running into Earl’s Court 
a hundred yards away, he remembered with pleas- 
ure that he would have a real bath to-morrow in 
which he could lie down. 

He reflected on a good many things this morn- 
ing, on Monsignor Dick whom he knew he was to 
meet, upon Crowston and his own spacious bed- 
room there which he had forfeited, with its pleas- 
ant wall-paper, its stiff chintz bed-curtains and the 
opulent suggestion of the footman’s entrance with 
hot water. He even did me the honor, he told me, 
of reflecting upon me. But chiefly he thought, as 
so often now, of the curious lull that seemed to have 
fallen upon him since his final decision in the sum- 
mer. 

Until that time he had experienced a continual 
discomfort, which he described to me as neuralgia 
of the soul. It had been enough to spoil every- 
thing ; yet it was not, so to speak, in the least degree 
a mortal disease. He knew perfectly well that he 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


275 


was bound by no law of God or man to enter the Re- 
ligious Life. He could remain a good Catholic 
without it, he could marry, if he wished, he could 
succeed tranquilly to Crowston, when the time came, 
preserve game for some months and kill it for six, 
beget sons and daughters, give balls at Christmas, 
and all the rest of it, no god or man forbidding 
him. (Mary Maple, of course, occurred to him in 
this connection, as he reviewed what might have 
been possible, but gently, without perturbation, al- 
most with pathos. Once or twice, as he dozed there 
on his back, her serious, pleasant face, framed in 
brown hair, formed and faded again.) Yet the con- 
templation of this conceivable future gave him spir- 
itual neuralgia. He enjoyed nothing. It would 
begin to ache, like its physical correlative, simultane- 
ously with the flush of spiritual pleasure. He had 
gone on like this for months, arguing with himself, 
mentioning it resolutely in confessing and trying, 
sometimes with success, to persuade his confessor to 
call it a scruple. Yet it had ached. Then Chris 
had taken the matter in hand, and probed deep, with 
horrible directness, right down to the nerve itself; 
the pain had been overpowering, and Algy had col- 
lapsed. 

Since then the ache had marvelously ceased. In- 
stead of it there had welled up in his soul an ex- 
traordinarily strange and aromatic kind of pleasure 


276 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


which never altogether left him. I say aromatic/’ 
because it had the effect upon him of a slightly an- 
aesthetic drug, it made everything seem a little un- 
real, it was of an unusual quality and it was ex- 
tremely sweet. . . . 

He reflected this morning on how very unreal 
everything was except those large Facts which he 
had embraced. He did his work in the offlce 
neither better nor worse than usual, but he did it 
mechanically. He caught his train at nine-five ev- 
ery morning except when he occasionally missed it, 
he stepped out at the Mansion House, he went along 
the street and turned up the stone staircase. At his 
desk he wrote in his ledgers (or whatever they are) 
and observed Jewish gentlemen in top-hats, and rose 
at the sound of a certain hand-bell, and all the rest 
of it ; and it was all as unreal as a poorly acted play. 
It seemed to have no connection with him. Real 
life, vibrating, absorbing, energetic, lay down there 
in Sussex behind those high walls in the dead silence 
of whitewashed rooms and the echoing solitudes of 
the cloister. 

Now I am quite aware that this sounds fantastic 
nonsense. I say nothing to that. That is not my 
affair. I am relating what Algy told me of himself 
and particularly what he told me of his thoughts 
this morning as he lay in bed and looked at things 
with half-shut eyes. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


277 

It was in this aspect, too, that he looked forward 
to Esher. Without a touch of contempt, only of 
wonder, he regarded life as he would find it there — 
the life of Crowston in another setting — the same 
solemnities, the elaborations of existence, the earnest 
zeal with which time would be carefully killed — 
bled to death — the overwhelming gravity with 
which the hours for meals, the precedence of per- 
sons and the rules for doing unimportant things 
would be observed. He did not underrate rules and 
methods ; they were necessary of course for the pres- 
ervation of the object for which they were designed : 
he would find himself, at Parkminster, under far 
more stringent rules than those he had known; but 
with regard to Esher and Crowston he asked him- 
self in vain what was the object which these did en- 
shrine, and he found no answer. They seemed to 
be ends in themselves. 

He thought presently again about Mary Maple. 
He knew nothing of course of her approach to the 
Church, and yet, in an impersonal way, he found 
himself a little uneasy when he thought of her. He 
had been extraordinarily fond of her a few months 
ago, though in that queer idealistic way I have de- 
scribed, and that had given him, it seemed, a cer- 
tain insight, as it generally does. Love, which, as 
the proverb implies, loses at least one eye, seems to 
have the other remarkably enlightened, and it ap- 


278 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


peared to Algy that Mary, too, had been a little dis- 
contented with her existence. Most of Algy’s old 
friends had done nothing in particular, but Mary 
was the only one of them who had ever shown any 
signs of not being wholly satisfied with it all. She 
had shown it, he thought, by her silences, by chance 
sentences, by an air which she occasionally wore. 
He knew he was to meet her at Esher this evening ; 
he wondered whether he would say anything to 
her. 

So there he lay this morning, sleepily content, 
pondering, expectant, till it was time to get up. He 
was agreeably moved, in spite of his views, by the 
prospect of Esher. It would be pleasant to be down 
to-night in a decent bedroom with agreeable furni- 
ture; it would be pleasant, in a superficial sort of 
way, to have really nice things to eat, to move in 
the atmosphere that he had lost and that he would 
lose far more finally when the proper time came. 
He did not in the least yearn after the flesh-pots; 
he was bound for the wilderness with a good heart, 
but it was not altogether uncongenial to find on the 
edge of it, for perhaps the last time, a well-served 
meal and a real spring bed and to be called by a 
deft footman. 

It would be pleasant, too, to talk with all these 
people again who moved always in such surround- 
ings — with even the Brasteds and Monsignor Dick 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


279 


and with whom ever else happened to be there and 
with Mary Maple. 

I have set all this down at length because it will 
be useful to bear in mind in what mood Algy went 
to Esher. 


(n) 

I have been there myself. The house is an ex- 
tremely pleasant and comfortable one, and the Bras- 
teds have somehow managed, I suppose, tacitly, 
to divide it very adroitly into the Church and the 
world. The dining-room and hall are neutral 
ground; the rest consists of two territories. It is 
the only way, I suppose, of keeping the peace. The 
drawing-room. Lady Brasted’s morning-room and 
a charming little oak-parlor where smoking is per- 
mitted are all ecclesiastical : the library, the smok- 
ing-room proper and the study are secular. It is 
really an ingenious arrangement. Priests and ec- 
clesiastical laymen somehow tend to find themselves 
smoking in the oak-parlor : a woman naturally goes 
to the drawing-room, or, if she is definitely secular, 
to the library. I found when I was there that the 
oak-parlor was supposed to be my destination al- 
ways ; yet — I blush to confess it — I was more 
often to be found in the smoking-room. Somehow 
I do not take to Lady Brasted’s ecclesiasticism. I 


28 o 


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even said my office in the library in preference to 
anywhere else. 

Hither, then, came poor Algy, just in time for 
dinner, to find already assembled in the hall his host 
and hostess, Mr. Jack Hamilton, Monsignor Yol- 
land and Miss Mary Maple. The Church was 
plainly holding her own. He made his salutations 
and apologies and ran upstairs to dress, vaguely 
pleased, as he had expected. 

Nothing particular happened that evening. He 
did not even sit next Mary. She sang a song or two 
in the drawing-room afterward, and he saw with- 
out a qualm — in fact, with a faint detached amuse- 
ment — Jack Hamilton hand her her candle. He 
remembered his old ambitions. He joined in the 
rather desultory conversation in the smoking-room 
and looked rather white and tired; at least, so Dick 
told me. But he liked it all very much, he told me 
himself. 

Again, next morning, nothing particular hap- 
pened. He served Dick’s mass in church, came 
back to breakfast and spent the time till lunch 
chiefly in the library. Lady Brasted and Miss Ma- 
ple went to the eleven o’clock mass. It was not until 
after lunch that Lady Brasted opened fire. 

She lured him first to the oak-parlor, and then 
begged of him to smoke. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


281 


Now it must be remembered that Algy had no 
conception that she was in the least interested in his 
future, or that she linked, in the remotest way, 
Mary’s name and his in her mind. It was scarcely 
possible for Dick to warn him ! So when she began 
to talk about Mary, Algy, still with that sense of the 
extreme unreality and unimportance of such things, 
of which I have spoken, responded warmly. Lady 
Brasted really did it very well. 

‘‘You know dear Mary is under instruction?” 
she said suddenly. 

“ Good Lord, no ! ” said Algy, really startled. 
“ I didn’t indeed.” 

“ Why, yes,” murmured the lady. “ Monsignor 
didn’t tell you ? ” 

“ Of course not. Why ? Is he instructing her ? ” 

“ I thought you would be sure to know. Of 
course, it’s quite private at present.” 

This rather worked up Algy. He had no idea 
even that Mary was dreaming of such a thing. He 
began to think of her with a new interest again. 

Then Lady Brasted played her second card. 

“ You knovv^, Mr. Algy, I think it must have been 
you who first put it into her mind. She has spoken 
to me of you so often and of your courage in telling 
them at Crowston.” ' 

(This was a little crude, I think, and Algy would 


282 


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surely have begun to suspect something if he had not 
been in that queer mood. But he has assured me 
that he suspected nothing. ) 

Then Lady Brasted went on, really very cleverly 
indeed, to talk about Mary’s confidences to herself. 
Algy’s own name was not so much as breathed 
again. It was just a very artistic and moving pic- 
ture of a simple soul finding its way to the light. 
Lady Brasted’s voice can tremble rather touchingly 
on occasions, and it did so several times this after- 
noon. She spoke of Mary as a poor child ” ; she 
managed to suggest youthfulness, inexperience, and 
deep, untrained spirituality; and, in Algy’s unprac- 
tical and remote mood, it had a very considerable 
effect. He was quite off his guard. He heard as a 
priest hears such tales. It did not come within the 
range of the most imaginative possibility that all 
this had any personal bearing on himself, since he 
regarded himself now as pledged to another life. 
Yet, at the same time, it did its work sufficiently. 
He began, so far as such external details touched 
him at all just now, to reawaken his interest in 
Mary. A very faint veil of romance began to 
shroud her figure again, though he heard the talk 
now but as a story. He reflected once or twice on 
the strangeness of the situation, that whereas three 
months ago all this would have been of palpitating 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 283 


interest, now it was hardly more than academical. 

Well,” concluded Lady Brasted, I expect she 
will tell you this evening herself. She is sure to, I 
think. Poor child! You must help her if you 
can.” 

Algy sat on a minute or two, after his hostess had 
rustled away, smiling gently to himself. How dis- 
creet Monsignor had been, he told himself! Then 
again, still academically, he began to day-dream. 

He thought of his own calf-love of a little over a 
year ago and of what Mary had seemed to him 
then. What a mysterious thing this Love was, this 
extraordinary, unreasoning adoration. ... It 
had waned then. Then, like an Indian summer it 
had half revived, when he was struggling to escape 
from the insistent voice in his soul. Then he had 
definitely rejected it; and now, once more, circum- 
stances adjusted themselves to an almost perfect 
frame for its reawakening. Then, with what would 
have been culpable rashness, if Algy had been him- 
self, he began,' as a purely imaginative picture, to 
reconstruct the future as it might be. Certainly 
Mary was a good deal older than he was; but that 
did not matter much. She was very acceptable at 
Crowston; he liked her extremely; he could, no 
doubt, even revive romance. She was to be a Cath- 


284 


PHE CONVENTIONALISTS 


olic then! . . . How ideal life might be at 

Crowston with her. . . . They could build a 

little chapel I . . . 

Then he suddenly jerked his head, woke up smil- 
ing at himself and went briskly out to find Dick. 

(in) 

They went a little walk in the falling rain, looked 
in at the church, and came back to tea in the hall. 
The two ladies were there. Brasted and Jack came 
in rather late, and when all was done, Algy, scarcely 
with any program, yet conscious that something was 
expected of him, moved off to the oak-parlor. 

It is a most charming little room, though faintly 
suggestive of a really first-rate house-decorator. 
Lady Brasted bought the paneling as it stood from 
a Jacobean manor house, at a great price; she had it 
fitted into this room and then proceeded to burnish 
it with articles of precisely the right date, Jacobean 
tables and chairs, an open hearth with steel dogs 
and fire-plate, a couple of chests, a piece of tapestry 
and a stiff-looking couch of extreme comfort. 
There are sconces on the walls, fitted with wax can- 
dles. In fact, it is a room of real beauty on the 
one side and of repulsive perfection on the other. 
But it is a seductive little room. 

Algy sat down on the couch and began to con- 
sider. 


THE CONVENTTONALISTS 285 


He was just very slightly excited. He would 
have been a mature saint if he had not been. The 
unreality was still there; and in this, I suppose, he 
found reassurance. He mistook it for real detach- 
ment, which it certainly is not. Naturally he 
thought about Mary with an agreeable sense of con- 
descension and pity. 

After about a quarter of an hour the door opened, 
and she came in. 

I despair of describing dresses; but she wore, I 
understand, what is known as a tea-gown of some 
rather rich, dark, silky material, her splendid hair 
was done up in the proper manner, and she came 
rustling forward as upright as a dart, carrying her 
head superbly. 

She began by paying him the exquisite compli- 
ment of saying nothing. She had just knelt down 
by the fire and spread her beautiful hands to the 
red glow, allowing her deep sleeves to fall back and 
show her arms to the elbow. And still she said 
nothing a while. 

This silence was a masterpiece. It established 
an intimacy at once. Algy strove to make a com- 
monplace remark, but he was not bold enough to 
speak of the weather. Anything would be bathos, 
it would even be profane. 

Then she looked at him suddenly, sideways, still 
with her hands outstretched. 


286 


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“ Annie has told you, she says ? '' 

Yes; just now.” 

‘‘ You congratulate me ? ” 

‘‘ Of course I do.” 

Again silence fell. Mary shifted a little, raising 
one knee and resting her elbows across it. 

It began to seem to Algy as if the unreality were 
fading a little. It was all so intimate and so 
pleasant. Her company was full of Crowston asso- 
ciations too. This life in London was so singularly 
unlike this charming feminine domesticity that I am 
not surprised that he was moved. He had hardly 
spoken to a woman for months, except to Lady 
Brasted ; and now this woman, above all others, had 
peculiar bonds with him. He had been furiously in 
love with her, he believed, a year ago, she was 
closely associated with his own home, and now she 
was drawing nearer that union in faith that is so 
vital among Catholics. He began to have a sense 
that all this was a little dangerous; but it was too 
pleasant to resist. Understand, please, again, that 
he was not at this moment in love with her, but that 
he had been in a sort of way. It is quite as often 
untrue as it is true that a burnt child fears the fire ; 
burnt children sometimes love it, or, at any rate, 
cannot keep away from it. . . . Algy looked at 

Mary. . . . 

Then Mary spoke again. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 287 


I want you to help me,” she said. 

‘‘ Yes?” 

Oh! I want you just to talk to me. You are 
inside; I am still outside. . . . Tell me this. 
Is it really as wonderful as it seems? ” 

It is quite different,” said poor Algy. ^‘Yes; 
it is far more wonderful; but it is different.” 

“ The glamour goes, you mean? ” 

‘‘Well, yes; the glamour. But something else 
comes instead. I can’t describe it ; I have only been 
a Catholic a few months myself.” 

She nodded meditatively three or four times. Her 
lips were parted; she was looking steadily at the 
fire ; her eyes had that strange brilliance that comes 
when light rises on to the face from beneath; her 
face was extraordinarily young and childish in the 
glow. . 

Then, without any warning, Algy’s heart began 
to hammer, and that odd contraction of the throat 
seized on him which shows that one part of the na- 
ture at least is profoundly stirred. At the same 
time a thrill, at once icy and tingling, ran through 
him, a mist passed over his eyes and went again, and 
Algy became aware that something had happened to 
him entirely new in his experience. (It is exceed- 
ingly difficult to put it into words; yet I must do 
my best. ) 

First, then, that veil of unreality, which had lain 


288 


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upon him so long, was gone in a clap, the material 
world asserted itself, and he perceived that he was 
a man in the world of men and that Mary was a 
woman. It was not in the least the old idealism ; it 
was something else of which he had known nothing, 
and it shook his curbed nature like a sudden storm. 
In a sense, he perceived what had happened, that it 
was his own fault, and yet he did not care. It was 
as a flood of wine, drenching his soul, intoxicating 
by its fumes, lifting him on its surge. He lay there 
tossing, knowing that he had but to relinquish the 
tiny mechanical effort that he still made, and that 
he would drown in sweetness. 

He knew everything in this moment — that Mary 
loved him, that she waited for him to speak, that 
ambition and love of Mary was mixed in her mind ; 
he knew that he had been asked here for this very 
purpose; he guessed that if the two women had not 
spoken of the plan outright, at least that they under- 
stood one another and that this opportunity had 
been formed with deliberation. He knew that it 
should have sickened him, yet that it did not. 
. . . For here was Mary, here was he, as in a 

flame of fire that bewildered him by its fierce sweet- 
ness, and behind lay a vision of Crowston, with all 
those details of which he had thought so lingeringly. 

His Vocation, in those moments, stood back from 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 289 


him, as a fog sways back in a breeze, and he saw it 
retire without regret. More, he understood now, as 
never before, what he had proposed to renounce and 
what to embrace. As in an intellectual vision, he 
saw on one side the leisurely home-life, domestic 
joys, comfort, ease, human love, all transfigured in 
light; on the other the cell that waited, dead silent, 
white-washed, lonely, his little garden, the dark- 
ness and chill of nights, the hardness of wood and 
stone; and the mystic color was gone from their 
surfaces. 

It was as a receding vision that he saw this; it 
was impossible and ludicrous . . . more and 

more impossible. Ordinary life was real, the rest 
was dreams. Here, then, all that was real was in- 
carnate in a woman, and on her, and on all that for 
which she stood, shone the light that was gone from 
the life of his imagination. He saw what men call 
Facts transfigured, and every pulse in him cried for 
their embrace, demanding the satiety that they alone 
could give. They stood there, welcoming him, cry- 
ing for him in return. . . . In an instant he 

would seize them in his arms. 

So, then, in this moment of perception, he hung 
between the two worlds, in a delirious delight of 
hesitation. The brink of wine rose to his lips, and 
he held them there, glorying in its sweetness, delay- 


19 


290 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


ing in sheer luxury the action that would make it 
his. . . . He waited for a movement from the 

other. 

Then it came. 

Very slowly she shifted her position once more, 
lowering her knee, leaning back a little as if to lift 
her face from the fire. He saw the edge of keen 
light run up her as she moved ; her supple waist, her 
strong shoulders, the curve of throat and chin and 
the gleam in her eyes and on her brown-gold hair. 
Then she began slowly to lift her eyes to his. . . . 

There was a step in the hall, and Dick came in 
abruptly. 

Hello, Algy!’^ he said. 

(IV) 

Dick had been vaguely uncomfortable after tea. 
He had sat on with the Brasteds a minute or two 
after Mary’s departure. Jack too had strolled off 
to the smoking-room, but Brasted still lingered. He 
had really rather neglected his guests this afternoon, 
and, I suppose, wished to make amends. 

Then he too went, and Dick was left with his 
hostess. 

Now Dick had no definite suspicions of Algy. 
He guessed the cob-web intricacies that Annie Bras- 
ted was weaving; but he did not fear them; Algy’s 
purpose was surely too strong. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


291 


He had noticed that there was something odd 
about the boy this time, though he could scarcely 
have put it into words. He told me later that all 
day the other had seemed to look at him from be- 
neath a mask. There are some faces that seem so 
always, some become so by training; it is sad, I do 
not know with what justice, that the faces of priests 
are usually of this kind. 

No,” Dick said to me. ‘‘ He was not particu- 
larly troubled-looking, not sad at all, but just odd. 
When he talked to the others he was quite ordinary 
and quiet; he was exactly all that a poseur is not. 
But once or twice on the Sunday I saw something 
look out suddenly. It was like a face peeping from 
under a blind. But the worst of it was that I could 
not see its expression. Only, there it was ; and then 
the blind dropped again. Do I remember what it 
was that was being said or done? Yes, I do happen 
to remember. Once it was when Miss Maple men- 
tioned Crowston, he looked up at her quite sud- 
denly; and another time I was saying something 
about a man I knew who had just died. It was 
something quite ordinary about how very upsetting 
it must be for certain kinds of people to die. . . . 

Yes; if you will have it, it was what is called the 
‘Inner Life’ that looked out; I suppose one must 
call it that. But he hadn’t got that look a year ago. 

, . . I’d almost say, six months ago.” 


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THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


It was this that, remarkably enough, had reas- 
sured Dick ! 

About Mary he was not so confident. She had 
come to him after his return in the summer, and 
after an interview or two had begged to be placed 
under instruction. Now what could Dick do? 
Mary seemed to know her reasons well enough; 
Lady Brasted had provided for that; and, by the 
end of October, Dick was convinced of her sincerity. 
Yet it was useless to pretend that there was not an- 
other motive mixed up in it all. (Lady Brasted had 
provided for that too.) Whether or no Mary was 
actually in love with Algy — of this Dick did not at- 
tempt to judge. At least she proposed to marry 
him; and what would happen when the girl heard 
that this young man was destined for Religion? 
Dick did the only possible thing. He dawdled. Yet 
he knew that Christmas must see the end. 

He became, then, vaguely uncomfortable, when 
Mary had gone off without a word after Algy, with 
Lady Brasted’s eyes carefully not following her. 

Lady Brasted still continued her small talk. It 
was connected with Italy, and some view or another 
of a white convent with cypresses where she had 
once stayed. She kept it up very well, but Dick be- 
came restless, and she saw it. 

‘‘ Do just come through into my room,” she said. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 293 

rising. I should so like to show you a little sketch 
I made.’' 

A sudden resolution came to Dick. 

One instant,” he said. ‘‘ May I just get some- 
thing from the oak-room? I’ll come directly.” 

I shan’t keep you a moment,” said Lady Bras- 
ted, and I rather think — ” 

Dick pretended not to hear. It was extremely 
rude, but it was the only way. 

'' One moment,” he said, and disappeared up the 
hall. 

When he saw the two there, he determined to 
postpone seeing the sketch for the present. 

‘‘ Hullo, Algy,” he said; and then: ‘‘ I say, you 
haven’t seen my breviary ? ” 

Algy got up without a word. The fire had sunk 
to a splendid red, and it was impossible to see his 
face. He looked silently on the couch behind him. 
Mary still knelt at the fire. 

May I just light the candles? ” said Dick gen- 
ially. 

When the candles were alight, Mary stood up and 
turned her back on the fire. 

** I can’t see it anywhere,” said Dick ; and it was 
no wonder, since it was in the library, and he knew 
it perfectly well. Then he looked at the two. 

Algy was very white indeed, with a very strained 


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look in his eyes. Mary seemed perfectly serene and, 
still standing before the hearth, glanced this way 
and that. 

Is it black morocco ? she said, without a note 
of discomposure. 

‘‘ That’s it.” 

‘‘ Then I think I saw it in the library.” 

I’ll have a look,” said Algy abruptly and rather 
hoarsely, and he vanished. 

Were you talking? ” asked Dick hypocritically, 
still not knowing what to think. 

‘‘ Yes,” said Mary. “ I’ve just told him about 
myself.” 

She was so serene that Dick thought himself a fool 
for even his vague suspicions. She stood quite nat- 
urally, her hands behind her, and spoke straight. 
Dick had a distinct sense of satisfaction in looking 
at her. He determined that it was all right, and 
that he was a fool. 

“ I mustn’t interrupt you,” he said. “ Lady Bras- 
ted’s going to show me something. I’ll just go after 
Algy.” 

He went out, passed across the hall, opened the 
door of the library and went in. 

Algy was standing perfectly rigid by the mantel- 
piece, staring into the fire, with the book in his 
hands, and even now he did not take in the situa- 
tion. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


295 


Good Lord,” he said; was it there? ” 

Algy handed it him without a word. 

‘‘ What’s the matter, Algy? ” 

The boy did not move. Dick went up to him and 
put his hand on his shoulder. 

“ What’s the matter? ” he said again. 

Algy shuddered, jerking his shoulder away, his 
face still turned to the fire. 

Don’t touch me,” he whispered. 

Dick stood aghast. 

‘‘ But — ” he began. 

Then, without a movement of warning, the boy 
threw himself in a crumpled heap into the deep- 
padded chair that stood behind him. 

“Algy! Algy!” 

“ Oh ! my God, my God ! ” wailed the boy. “ Why 
did no one tell me? I never knew! I never 
knew.” 

Dick was down on his knees in a moment, after 
one terrified glance at the door. 

“ Algy ; tell me this instant. . . . Don’t be- 

have like that ! ” 

“ Oh! my God! ” groaned out the voice piteously. 
“ But I know now. But why did no one tell me? 
God is cruel . . . cruel.” 

“ Algy ! how dare you behave like this ? Be a 

man ! ” 

Then, all in a moment the boy recovered himself 


296 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 

like a steel spring. He wheeled about and sat up, 
as the priest recoiled on to his heels. 

‘‘ Oh ! I can behave myself, he snarled. “ Do 
you think Vm going to give in ? ” 

Dick stood up, driving down his tumult of be- 
wilderment by an affectation of contempt. 

‘‘Do you call that behaving yourself?’^ he 
sneered. “ Why can’t you tell me what’s the matter, 
decently? . . . Algy, are you quite mad? ” 

Algy looked at him a moment, his eyes burning 
out of his white face. Then he got up, and stood, 
staring steadily at the priest. 

“ I will tell you then,” he said slowly. “ It is this. 
I understand now what I am going to. I did not 
before.” 

Dick struggled to keep his attitude of faint con- 
tempt. He still feared something resembling hys- 
terics. But he was more terrified at something else. 

“ You had better,” he said. “ I suppose, at least, 
you mean the Religious Life.” 

“ Just so,” said Algy. “ I mean the Religious 
Life.” 

“ There are two sides to that,” observed the 
priest ; “ they don’t want emotional divots 

Every word was an effort. He felt overpowered 
by something about this boy; yet he fought bravely 
to keep his head. It was as if he faced a tiger. 

Algy thrust his face a little nearer. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


297 


‘‘Yes,’' he said; “God is cruel. . . . Oh! I 

am not blaspheming. He demands everything.” 

“ How dare — ” began the priest. 

“ I am aware they do not want emotional devots/^ 
snarled Algy. “ That is exactly why I am going. 
. . . Look here, Monsignor, I thank God I know 

what it means now. Does that content you ? ” 

(V) 

Lady Brasted was waiting in some annoyance, 
with her sketch-book spread before her on a little 
table and herself in a deep arm-chair. She wished 
that priests were not so imperceptive. Here was 
this dear, good Monsignor, blundering like a blue- 
fly into her pious little web, to the shocking discom- 
posure of its captives. 

She had no particular motive, I gather, for her 
scheme, except that which is perhaps the most 
powerful motive known to man, namely an intention 
to have her own way and to manage people. She 
had conceived an idea that it would be very beauti- 
ful for these two young persons to marry — both 
converts, both old friends. A large section of her 
nature was really stupid — that section which deals 
with principles; the other, dealing with details and 
nuances and shades, was rather subtle. Her Italian 
convents showed that; the drawing was bad, espe- 
cially the perspective ; the details and the colors were 


298 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


quite beautiful. She liked, too, to patronize Mary. 

She heard the steps come out of the oak-room, 
first one and then the other, and go across to the 
library. Then the door shut; and a long pause en- 
sued. 

She stood up at last, when ten minutes had passed, 
in a sort of holy impatience; and, as she was con- 
sidering what was best to do, the door suddenly 
opened and Dick came in. 

He looked rather odd, she thought; he breathed 
quickly, as a man who has been running, and his 
expression generally was not genial. 

“ At last ! Monsignor,” she said. 

May I speak to you ? ” said Dick. 

Quite suddenly she too felt perturbed. The man 
looked angry. She could not conceive what it was 
all about. As she looked at him, paling a little, 
again she heard steps come out of the library, cross 
the hall and begin to go upstairs. 

“ Why, certainly,” she said, and sat down again. 
Dick still stood on the edge of the hearth-rug, where 
he had halted. His head was thrust forward a little, 
like a bull, and he still breathed sharply. 

Lady Brasted,” he said, ‘‘ you must forgive me 
if I seem impertinent ; but I want to ask you a ques- 
tion. It is this. Are you trying to bring about a 
marriage between Miss Maple and Algy? ” 

Gentle, spiritual-looking women occasionally have 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


299 


a touch of vixenish temper in their characters. If 
their aspirations are to spirituality they can generally 
keep this (greatly to their credit) under control, even 
interiorily. But this horribly direct question pricked 
Lady Brasted very sharply indeed. She flushed, 
ever so slightly, and a little sharpness came into her 
delicate face. 

“ Is that — er — a question you have any busi- 
ness to ask. Monsignor ? ” 

Dick shifted a little on his feet; then he straight- 
ened himself. 

‘‘ I dare say not,” he said. ‘‘ Certainly not, if 
you do not wish to answer it. I beg your pardon 
then. . . . But then I must just say what I have 

to say. It is this : If anybody has any idea of a pos- 
sible marriage between Algy and Miss Maple, I 
should like it to be made quite clear to them that it 
will not do. ... I see I must be perfectly 
frank. Algy is hoping to enter Religion. . . . 

That is quite private, if you please, except for the 
purpose I have implied. If you think that — er — 
that any one should know this, who is likely to be 
interested in the scheme of this marriage, it would 
be a charity to let them know the facts.” 

Dick bowed rather pompously and turned away. 

“ Stop ! ” cried Lady Brasted — and he stopped. 

‘‘I don’t understand in the least. Monsignor. 
This is quite new, isn’t it ? ” 


300 


:the conventionalists 


Dick hesitated. Then he smiled carefully. 

You must allow me, too, not to answer that,’’ 
he said. I have leave from Algy to say as much as 
I have said, but no more.” 

He saw her flush again, slightly. He rather ad- 
mired her self-control. Then she leaned back more 
easily. 

'' Dear me,” she said quietly. ‘‘ This is a great 
surprise to me. And do you think he really has a 
Vocation? ” 

Dick jerked his head a little. 

“May I sit down a moment?” he said. (This 
kind of pompous fencing seemed to him ridiculous. 
He determined to be frank.) 

“ Let me be quite plain,” he said. “ I know you 
won’t be offended. May I really speak out? ” 

“ Please do,” she said, with quite a pleasant smile. 

“Well — honestly — I think it’s a pity to inter- 
fere. I know you mean to be kind and don’t want 
anything at all but Algy’s good; but, really and 
truly, as a priest, I do ask you not to do anything 
more just now. It’s a long story, and I could not 
possibly tell you all the details ; but it comes to this. 

■ I am perfectly convinced — more than ever now 
from something that has just happened — that this 
boy has got a Vocation. I think it’s a dreadful pity 
to distract him and complicate matters just now; 
and, I don’t think it’s quite fair to Miss Maple. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


301 


May I ask you, quite simply, to leave things alone 
for the present ? His people don’t know yet. They 
will have to be told. There are a heap of complica- 
tions. . . . Please don’t add to them. Lady 

Brasted.” 

Dick would have disarmed a child. But Lady 
Brasted was not a child. She was a rather suspi- 
cious and very elaborate woman. She was silent a 
moment, from sheer annoyance. It was intolerable 
that she should be told her business by an impercep- 
tive priest. 

And you think Miss Maple should be warned 
off?” she said sweetly. 

It was Dick’s turn to flush. 

‘‘ Please don’t think of me as having formed any 
opinion at all about Miss Maple. I simply say what 
I think best.” 

Lady Brasted looked at the fire without speaking. 

“ It is very kind of you to take all this trouble. 
Monsignor; I felt sure that dear Mr. Algy was in 
good and careful hands.” 

Dick glanced up. But there was not a trace of 
sarcasm in her tone or air. 

Then — ” he began. 

There were steps in the hall, the rustle of a dress ; 
Dick stood up hastily and Mary walked in. 

“ Thank you so much. Lady Brasted,” he said. 

I really must go and say office.” 


302 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


There was silence for a minute or two after the 
door closed. 

‘‘ Did you have a pleasant talk, my dear? ” purred 
Annie. 

Mary knelt down by the fire, as she had knelt just 
now in the oak-room; and again she said nothing. 

I am so sorry our little week-end is almost fin- 
ished,” went on the other tranquilly. You must 
come down again, Mary, dear, before Christmas; 
and Mr. Algy must come too.” 


CHAPTER IV 


(i) 

/^N the eighteenth of November I received at 
Cambridge a grim little birthday present in 
the form of a note enclosed in one from Chris. It 
ran as follows: 

Crowston, Sussex, 
November i6. 

‘‘ My Dear Sir : 

“ I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter 
and to say that I shall be happy to see you and your 
two friends on the 25th. You do not inform me of 
the nature of the news you wish to lay before me, be- 
yond saying that it concerns my son Algernon and 
that you come from him. But you must allow me 
to say that if it has any bearing upon my decision 
that my son must not live at home, I feel it right to 
tell you that no arguments you can bring before me 
will have any effect. I say this to spare you the 
trouble of coming on a useless errand. Perhaps you 
will kindly assure me that this is not the case. 

‘‘ Yours faithfully, 
‘7ohn T. Banister.-'^ 

‘‘ C. Dell, Esq.” 

303 


304 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


Chris added a line or two to say that he had sent 
this assurance and had announced that we would 
arrive by the three-fifty on the date mentioned. We 
could leave again a little after six. He asked me to 
send both the notes on to Dick. 

Now I knew hardly anything of what had hap- 
pened at Esher, beyond what a rather exultant and 
incoherent note from Dick had conveyed to me. In 
it he hinted that something had happened which 
confirmed his own belief in the boy’s vocation and 
that the way would now be cleared of Miss Maple.. 
He promised to tell me more when we met. 

I spent the next few days in conjecture. I put 
Miss Maple aside. I felt I did not know enough; 
and confined myself to Algy. At this time I knew 
nothing of Algy’s father except what Algy himself 
had told me ; and a son is not usually a good critic of 
his parents. I scarcely knew what to expect. From 
the letter I deduced a strong will, an ambition to 
be business-like and an entire lack of imagination. 
The handwriting corroborated these points. The 
letter was written with a “ J ” pen, itself a signifi- 
cant detail; the lines were level; the capitals unim- 
portant; there was a thick black line beneath the 
signature ; one or two of the words tailed off rather. 
I said to myself, oracularly, that here was a strong 
man, but not so strong as he thought. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


305 


I began to wonder all over again what in the 
world this man would make of the Contemplative 
Life. Probably he would be under the impression 
that there were no Contemplatives at this beginning 
of the twentieth century and that what there had 
been before the days of breezy King Hal had de- 
voted themselves entirely to chambering and wan- 
tonness, to enormous meals such as are depicted in 
comic papers, to the taking of too much wine and 
to other carnalities. It would surely be entirely im- 
possible to convince him that there were still many 
thousands of persons, men and women, who deliber- 
ately shut themselves up in order to pray and that 
his son Algy proposed to make one of them. . . . 

The imagination boggled at the thought of the in- 
terview. 

So, once more, I escaped into irresponsibility, 
threw out anchors, so to speak, and wished for the 
day. 

On the twenty-fourth I received a long letter from 
Algy, recounting his Esher experience and making 
other remarks. This I prefer not to insert. . . . 

I went to town on the morning of the twenty-fifth 
and drove straight to Dick’s house, and the instant 
I set eyes on him, sunk despairingly in his arm-chair, 
I knew that things were somehow all wrong. He 
looked at me hopelessly. 


20 


3o6 the conventionalists 


‘‘ Where’s Chris ? ” I began. 

‘‘ He’s to meet us at the station, if we really are to 

go-'' 

I ignored this. 

‘‘AndAlgy?” 

‘‘ He’s dining here this evening.” 

Dick was in his dramatic mood; I could see that 
and determined to face it cheerfully. 

‘‘ Look here, Dick; what’s the matter? ” 

He waved his hands despairingly as I sat down. 

“ I can’t tell you ; I can’t tell you ; that’s the worst 
of it. And I shall burst if I don’t.” 

“If you mean Esher you needn’t trouble. I 
heard from Algy yesterday. . . . Yes, quite 
full and explicit.” 

“ Thank God ! ” broke out Dick piously ; and sat 
down too. Then he went on rapidly. “ My dear 
man, that boy’s going to be a saint. He’s — he’s 
gorgeous. I fear nothing for him. He knows the 
whole thing now, and he never wavered one second.” 

“ Well then — ” 

“ It’s the other one, my dear man ; it’s the other 
one.” 

“ You mean Miss Maple ? ” 

“Yes. . . . Well, I went straight to Lady 

Brasted, with his leave, and told her everything — I 
mean about his vocation — and told her to pass it 
on. Wasn’t that right? ” 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


307 


I suppose so” 

‘‘ Well, of course, it never even entered my head 
that she wouldn’t/^ 

“ Do you mean — ” 

Dick waved his hands again. 

‘‘ Em in a frightful state of mind,’’ he cried. I 
don’t know what to think. All I know is that that 
girl’s been here for instructions again and again, 
just as usual, that she’s gone down to Crowston 
again and that there’s not the faintest sign that she 
knows anything. I don’t believe that woman’s told 
her after all.” 

“ Stuff and nonsense ! ” I said. She must 
have.” 

“ I don’t believe it for a minute,” cried Dick. ‘‘ I 
believe she’s trying to force it on more than 
ever.” 

“ Tell me exactly what happened in the evening,” 
I said judicially. 

“ Nothing, nothing at all. Miss Maple was all 
right, and of course I thought that Lady Brasted 
wasn’t going to tell her till after we’d gone. So 
that didn’t disturb me. But Algy ! Algy ! My dear 
man, he was absolutely himself again. He took her 
into dinner, he turned over music for her — Lady B. 
asked him, by the way — he was perfectly natural. 
I can’t think where that boy gets his self-control 
from. How in the world he did it is beyond me. I 


3o8 the conventionalists 


was like a cat on hot plates, inside. But he did it all 
without a tremor. I never caught him off his guard 
once. We went off early next morning, and the 
last thing I saw was that girl waving to us from the 
porch. She was a bit too serene for my liking, be- 
cause she must have seen there had been something 
queer about Algy in the oak-room.” 

'' I understand from Algy that it was just touch- 
and go,” I said slowly. 

“ Exactly ; at least so he thinks, though I’m not 
sure. . . . Well, the question is, what’s to be 

done?” 

''Why didn’t you tell her yourself?” T said se- 
verely. 

Dick groaned. 

" I wish to God I had ; but I kept hoping and hop- 
ing that Lady Brasted had, or would. Then I 
thought I’d tell her when we’d seen his people, and 
this morning I got a note to say she couldn’t come 
to-morrow as she was going to Crowston yesterday 
till Monday.” 

I sat pondering. These were indeed complica- 
tions. 

" What about her faith ? ” I asked. 

" Oh ! she’s convinced all right. That’s the 
worst of it in one way. If she was just a hypocrite 
I wouldn’t mind. But she’s not ; there’s a lot in her. 
I don’t know when I’ve had a more satisfactory con- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


309 


vert. And yet I can’t doubt any longer that she’s 
in love with this boy. . . . I’ve been thinking 

furiously. . . . She speaks of him now and 

then. It’s all that other woman, you know.” 

Tell me more about Algy.” 

Dick laughed shortly. 

“ Oh ! you needn’t bother about him. He’s all 
right. I suppose you do really understand what 
happened to him that evening? ” 

I imagine that he suddenly understood what 
falling in love meant.” 

'' Exactly ; though that’s a mild way of putting it. 
He was just knocked clean off his feet. I’ve heard 
of it before ; but I’ve never seen it till then.” 

‘‘Wasit . . . was it, rather ghastly ? ” 

Dick leaned forward. 

My dear,” he said, you and I are priests ; Algy 
isn’t. I suppose neither you nor I ever have or ever 
can possibly understand it. But it was ghastly.” 

** And he never wavered ? ” I asked, after a pause. 

Never for one second. He said that God was 
cruel. I began to tell him that he was blaspheming; 
then I saw he wasn’t. ... He only meant that 
God must have everything or nothing — at least 
from him. . . . Well; he was staying here a 

night or two last week.” 

Yes?” 

Well ; I went to his room when he was out to get 


310 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


a book I’d lent him. I couldn’t find it. I began to 
look among his things. There was a tin box there, 
one of those round things, you know, that altar- 
breads are kept in. Well ; the top fell off as I moved 
it. Do you know what was inside ? ” 

I shook my head. 

‘‘ It was a little discipline that boy had made out 
of whip-cord and wire.” 

Oh ! they often do that. It’s a regular symp- 
tom.” 

Yes, I know. But this meant business. I tell 
you it was all streaked over with blood. That’s 
new, since Esher, I expect.” 

‘‘ Did you say anything to him ? ” 

“ Good God! no.” 

There was a silence. . . . Then I returned 

abruptly to Miss Maple. 

“ She can’t apostatize, because she isn’t a Catholic 
— Miss Maple, I mean.” 

‘‘No; but she can draw back . . . and, and 

break her heart.” 

I was silent. 

“ Does she know we’re coming down to-day ? ” I 
asked presently. 

“ She’s sure to by now. I didn’t tell her.” 

“ Why on earth not ? It would have been rather 
a good — ” 

“ My dear man, I just couldn’t. ... I don’t 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


311 

know. Oh, Lord! do let me alone. What a con- 
founded nuisance these women are I ’’ 

Dick began to stride about his room, hammering 
his head in perplexity. 

‘‘ Come and lunch, I said, with as much tranquil- 
lity as I could summon. Things were getting be- 
yond me altogether, and when they do that, I am 
accustomed to let go and wait. 

It was a very dismal meal that we had. Dick 
was distracted and feverish. I began to wonder 
whether he was the right man to take with us or 
not, till I remembered the way in which I had seen 
him deport himself once or twice before in the pres- 
ence of difficulties. (Oh! Dick has plenty of breed- 
ing. He’ll rage on up to the verge of male hysterics 
when he’s with friends; but he’ll stiffen into the 
most proper rigidity when the crisis really arrives. 
I suppose it’s the result of breeding.) But he was 
at his worst with me that day. He had long fits of 
staring at the tablecloth, answering me in the voice 
of one who dreams ; he pushed his chair back at the 
end, forgetting to say grace, and seized a cigarette 
without offering me one ; he also took the most com- 
fortable chair with its back to the light. Finally, 
he said he didn’t think he’d come with us, after 
all. 

You’ve got to,” I said briefly. (Of course, the 


312 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


possibility had occurred to me of not going myself. ) 

But how can I face that girl ? 

“You ass! She won’t join the council. No; 
it’s next Wednesday that’ll be your crisis.” 

“ What, when she comes for instruction ? She 
won’t come. I’ll bet you what you like.” 

I knew nothing about that ; and said so. 

“ I’m in such a tangle,” said Dick slowly, “ that 
I really don’t see my way out. I wonder . . . 

oh ! I wonder whether we’re right. Suppose it 
doesn’t come off. Suppose Algy funks it at the 
end. . . . Suppose, after all, he’s got no voca- 
tion! . . . What a vile mess we should have 

made of it ! ” 

“ Dick. That’s not our affair. We’ve got to 
take things as they come. ‘ Do ye nexte thynge.’ 
Besides, you know perfectly well he’s got a Voca- 
tion.” 

“ I suppose you’re right,” he said, and relapsed 
into thoughtful gloom. 

The train left Victoria at two-thirty-five; and at 
twenty minutes past the hour we told Betty to beckon 
up a cab. 

It was a heavy November day as we drove 
through the streets — the kind of a day that either 
drives one inwards or outwards; either into an un- 
derstanding of how little man is and how helpless 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


313 


before Large Mysteries ; or of how strong and great 
he is to have accomplished so much in this world, 
these enormous buildings, this stupendous city, these 
labyrinths of rail and steam and streets. Here we 
were, two small men, in a hansom cab; here about 
us was London with its huge suggestiveness, its 
overpowering witness to materialism ; and what was 
beyond it all? Was the whole affair visionary and 
impossible — this business on which we were bent ? 
Or was it the most supremely real and vital thing? 
One of the two alternatives was the raving of mad- 
ness, the other the apotheosis of sane sense. Which 
was which ? . . . 

On the strip of pavement outside the booking- 
office, among the supercilious porters who always 
at that station lounge about waiting for gentlemen 
in fur coats on their way to Brighton, to the dis- 
comfiture of all less wealthy travelers, stood a 
bearded figure in a fawn-colored coat, brown boots 
and a Trilby hat. 

‘‘ So here you are,” he said. “ Fve got the tick- 
ets.” 


(n) 

Harold was at home on an exeat from Oxford 
and had arrived with Miss Maple and Sybil on the 
previous evening. There was to be shooting next 
day, for which another man or two were expected. 


314 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


and Mary and Sybil were come down to entertain 
them. 

Harold was rather cross after lunch, for his 
darling was still talking in the hall with his mother ; 
and lingering about had seemed useless. So he 
went to the billiard-room and began to knock the 
balls about. He had asked for the motor and had 
been told he couldn’t have it. 

It’s got to go to the station,” said his father. 

‘‘ Who’s coming? ” 

‘‘ Some one to see me.” 

Mr. Banister looked severe and thought how dis- 
creet he was. There was no earthly reason why he 
should not have announced our coming; but he had 
not done so except to his wife with an instruction to 
keep the confidence. I think he thought there was 
something vaguely disreputable in the fact that three 
papists were to enter his house. It might almost 
look as if Popish plots were being successful and as 
if the defection of his own son were somehow whis- 
pering the machinations of the Jesuits, who, as is 
notorious, are perpetually worming themselves into 
blameless British households without the smallest 
motive. He knew that Chris gave himself out to be 
a layman; but he was not quite satisfied. On the 
whole, therefore, it seemed to him best to keep the 
whole affair dark, and to entertain us to conversa- 
tion and tea in his own study. He still believed, as 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


315 


we learned presently, that the object of the deputa- 
tion must be, in some manner, to reinstate Algy. 

So Harold was doubly cross. He had failed to 
get the motor for himself and Sybil, and he had now 
failed to get Sybil for himself. 

He played, then, with that listlessness that means 
failure. Four times did he venomously hit the balls 
round the table without accomplishing anything. 
Once more he set his teeth savagely and was ad- 
dressing himself to the red, when Mary walked in. 

He had not seen her alone since her arrival; but 
he had noticed, he thought, an unusual air about her. 
She had been very quiet at dinner on the previous 
evening, quiet again at breakfast and lunch, and 
yet she had not seemed at all depressed. There was 
a kind of radiant tranquillity in her brown eyes that 
had been rather pleasing when he had had time to 
notice it. Harold approved of Mary very much, 
and, as soon as the disappointment that she was not 
Sybil had subsided, he was conscious of being 
pleased that she had come. 

Come and knock about,’’ he said. 

Mary looked at him an instant as he played his 
stroke and missed. 

‘‘ Yes, I will,” she said. “ I see there’s hope for 
me to-day ; ” and she chose a cue. 

Harold liked playing with Mary, because he knew 
he could always beat her if he really paid attention ; 


3i6 the conventionalists 


and yet Mary played well enough to redeem the 
performance from absurdity. 

‘‘ Aren’t you going out ? ” she said. 

‘‘No; it’s beastly. Besides, I’ve been out this 
morning. Go on: you begin. Fifty up.” 

It was very pleasant to watch her. She was so 
careful and so graceful. She bent her face so de- 
liberately. Her hands were so white and firm. She 
really wanted to win; she was so genially distressed 
when she lost, which was three times out of four; 
she was so completely delighted when she won 
through Harold’s inattention or magnanimity. She 
gave him exactly that which the young male de- 
sires — a competitor competent enough to be worth 
facing, inferior enough to be secure of beating and 
pleasant enough to protect. Harold felt a real man 
when he played at billiards with Mary. 

Outside, the day was bleak enough to heighten the 
pleasure of this warm and secure room. Gusts of 
wind pattered the laurel leaves together beneath the 
window, flaws of rain spattered on the glass, the 
huge cedar on the lawn tossed its well-bred fingers 
and arms despairingly in the air as a man shrugs 
his shoulders in disgust, and, beyond, heavy clouds 
ran continually across the sky. 

The two were neck by neck up to forty-two ; then 
Harold ran out, and laid down his cue. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 317 

‘‘ I wonder where Sybil is,” he said inadvertently. 

Mary looked at him with sisterly pleasure. 

‘‘ Oh ! Harold,” she said, “ I do like you.” 

The boy flushed, brought suddenly down from his 
manhood, while Mary sat down comfortably in the 
low, large, pig-skin chair by the fire. 

Shall I tell you something? ” she said suddenly. 

‘‘ All right.” 

‘‘ I don’t think I will, then.” 

Harold affected to whistle, and Mary watched 
him with pleasure as he took up his cue once more. 
She knew perfectly well what was in his mind. 
Then, after an effectual stroke, out it came. 

“ It isn’t anything about Sybil ? ” he asked, going 
round the table. 

‘‘ No — it’s about me.” 

‘‘ Oh!” 

‘‘I will tell you,” said Mary impulsively, ‘‘if 
you’ll absolutely swear not to tell a soul.” 

‘‘ All right.” 

“No; come and sit down. I can’t talk while 
you’re doing that.” 

Harold finished his run (it would never do for 
the male to show interest in female secrets) ; tossed 
his cue on the table; came round and sat opposite 
her, with his hands in his pockets. 

“It’s this first,” said Mary. “Have you ever 


3i8 the conventionalists 


talked to Algy much — she broke off in some con- 
fusion. “ No/’ she said, “ it’s nothing to do with 
Algy. . . . Oh ! I may as well tell you. 

Again she stopped. Harold eyed her carefully. 

‘‘ Well ; get on,” he said. 

‘‘ I don’t think I will,” observed Mary very slowly. 

At least, not just now. Let us talk about some- 
thing else.” 

‘‘ What you please,” said Harold politely. 

‘‘ Well — Sybil,” she said, determined to switch 
off the line effectually. 

What’s there to say about her? ” 

“Well; what’s she doing this afternoon?” 

“ I haven’t the slightest idea.” 

“ My dear boy,” said Mary contentedly, “ you 
needn’t take that line with me. I think she’s a dear 
girl ; and so do you, you know.” 

“ Oh ! she’s all right,” remarked Harold uncom- 
fortably. Mary had never talked quite like this be- 
fore; she had never been quite so straightforward, 
though he knew and she knew and he knew that she 
knew, and so forth, exactly what the relations were. 

“ What I want to know is this,” said Mary with 
unusual determination. “ What’s going to hap- 
pen ? ” 

“ Oh I I don’t know,” said the boy peevishly. 
“ What’s the good of talking? ” 


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319 


‘‘ I wish I was of some use in the world,” sighed 
Mary, beginning to drum her bronze shoe on the 
bear’s head at her feet. 

“ When did you meet Algy last ? ” asked Harold 
suddenly. 

“ About a fortnight ago.” 

‘‘ Oh ! where’s he going to be for Christmas, do 
you know ? ” 

‘‘ Lady Brasted’s going to ask him down,” said 
Mary with a superb unconcern. 

'' Oh ! Are you going to be there ? ” 

Yes.” 

Poor old Algy. Give him my love.” 

“ I will.” 

Then Harold had a sudden impulse of confidence 
about himself. He felt cruelly used just now; there 
was the motor and there was Sybil and there were 
his debts at Oxford and his father’s singularly un- 
sympathetic attitude towards them and a host of 
things, including the particular state of mind that 
one gets into in the middle of an afternoon indoors. 

Look here,” he said. “ Of course, you know all 
about it. . . . Well, I’m twenty-one next year; 

I shall then have three hundred pounds a year of 
my own. I ask you, what’s a man to do with that ? ” 

Save it for five years,” said Mary. 

‘‘Fifteen hundred pounds! Besides, I can’t 
starve meantime. And there are some debts.” 


320 


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‘‘ Go into an office/’ 

I couldn’t possibly. And even then — Oh ! 
it’s hopeless.” 

“ Hasn’t she got anything ? ” 

“Not a penny piece. . . . Well, I suppose 

about fourpence.” 

He relapsed into silence again, eying only the 
little shoe that tapped and tapped. It was a cruel 
situation. Here was this ass Algy, certainly dreeing 
his weird just now (but, then, that was entirely his 
own fault), but with unlimited prospects to look for- 
ward to — to Crowston, to an adequate income, to 
comparative liberty. And he didn’t in the least de- 
serve it or appreciate it. Harold felt filled with 
sudden vindictiveness. 

“ And there’s that fool Algy,” he said, “ with his 
rotten religion — ” 

The foot stopped tapping very suddenly; and he 
looked up. 

“Well?” he said. 

“ Don’t abuse Algy’s religion,” said the girl 
quietly. 

“ Why not? Nobody but a fool — ” 

“ Please don’t,” she said again. 

The panting of a motor suddenly became audi- 
ble from the direction of the drive, sounding through 
the open door of the billiard-room that gave upon 
one of the hall passages. From where Harold sat 


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321 


he could see through that door, along the passage 
and through the window beyond to the front of the 
house. 

“ Here's the motor," he said, suddenly distracted. 
‘‘ I wonder who the chap is. . . . Good Lord ! 

there are three of them, and two of them are par- 
sons." 

‘‘ Parsons?" 

“ They look like it. What on earth does father 
want with two parsons? I hate parsons. That's 
a fat one ! " 

Mary got up out of her chair and came across, 
looking too. Then she suddenly appeared to freeze. 
She remained perfectly still, half turned away from 
the boy, with one hand on the billiard table. 

" ‘‘What's up?" said Harold, startled by her at- 
titude. 

Mary took a step towards the door; then, as the 
three disappeared within the Corinthian portico she 
turned round. Her face was strangely set, and 
there was an odd light in her eyes. Still she did not 
speak. 

“What’s up?" asked Harold again. “Do you 
know any of them? " 

“I know one of them," said Mary; “they're 
priests." 

“ Priests ! ” 

Then Mary was gone. 

21 


322 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


(ill) 

Harold too got up a moment later and went after 
her, but she had disappeared. This was really ex- 
citing. Visions of plots and conversions moved be- 
fore his brain. He had a wild picture, as he tiptoed 
along towards the hall, of his father going through 
strange rites in his study, from which he too should 
emerge a Catholic. Surely it must be news of Algy ! 
Perhaps he was dead! One violent emotion tore 
through his heart as he perceived what this meant 
to himself. Then he beat it down; for he was a 
good-hearted boy on the whole. 

The hall was empty, but on the oak-table in the 
center there lay three hats; a silk one, a Trilby, and 
a wide-awake. He inspected them curiously. They 
seemed very suggestive. There was a stick, too, 
on the table, with a silver band around it ; he looked 
at that too and read the initials ‘‘ C. Priests ! 

The door from the inner hall opened, and a charm- 
ing face peered in. 

Come here,” hissed Harold melodramatically. 

Sybil stepped in like a dainty cat. 

Who do you suppose these belong to ? ” whis- 
pered the boy indicating the hats. 

She shook her head silently, looking at him with 
expectant eyes. (Oh! she was charming!) 

Two Popish priests,” hissed Harold once more, 


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323 


“ and they've now gone to father to make him a 
Catholicr Don’t you smell the incense? ” 

‘‘ What do you mean ? ” 

I swear they’re priests.” 

How do you know ? ” 

“ Mary told me so. She knows one of them, she 
said.” 

Sybil stared at him. 

‘‘ I passed her on the stairs just now. She was 
going to your mother’s room.” 

The two regarded one another. 

Come along to the billiard-room,” said Harold 
suddenly. ‘‘ We must beat the bottom out of this.” 

There they sat down again on two chairs, on 
either side of the fire-place, leaving the door open 
as before, in case the mysterious strangers should 
come out again. But the motor had gone off to the 
stables, and there appeared no hope of seeing them 
again for the present. It was quite like the situation 
at Esher, with other actors. 

‘‘ By George ! ” began Harold. ‘‘ Something’s 

up.” 

Sybil nodded mutely. She was sitting' where 
Mary had sat just now, and he could not help con- 
trasting one with the other. Certainly Mary had 
looked very young just now; but with Sybil now in- 
stead — I 


3^4 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


What Mary had said of her a while ago was sin- 
gularly true, thought Harold. She was like a Gains- 
borough — exactly like one ; with an extraordinary 
suggestiveness of youth and breeding and daintiness, 
'with large gray eyes and red mouth ; and she would, 
as Mary had said, look more and more like a French 
marquise every year she lived. 

The sun was beginning to go down beyond the 
windows in a cheerful glory, breaking out beneath 
the arched clouds, and the ruddy light shone its level 
rays straight in upon that picture opposite the boy, 
turning the girl’s dark hair to threads of gold, 
charging her face with radiance and her eyes with 
light. 

Harold broke off in the midst of an argument to 
the effect that Algy must have been offered an im- 
portant post at a foreign court, probably by the 
Jesuits — ” 

‘‘ Good Lord ! ” he cried. 

Then he was down on his knees at her feet, seiz- 
ing her slender hands and kissing them furiously. 

“ My darling ! ” he cried. 

Oh ! he had kissed her before, shyly and suddenly 
in shrubberies and dark rooms; but never with this 
passion. It was the whole thing that inspired him 
— the vivid hope that would assert itself that in 
some way or another the visit of the priests would 
mean wealth to himself. No, no, his heart cried to 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


325 


him. Algy was not dead! he could not be dead! 
Poor old Algy ! And, on the other, there was that 
vague hope that would not be stifled, that in some 
way or another the situation would be changed for 
the better. Harold had been so constant and so 
very proud of it ! Surely things would turn. 
Above all, there sat Sybil in an entrancing light. 

Sybil too knew the difference between this kissing 
and the other ones. The dear face on her hands 
shook with passion; the lips stung. 

Let me go,” she cried breathlessly, ashamed 
and frightened. 

It was a minute or two before she could tear him 
off, and stood up, trembling and white. 

‘‘ Oh ! my darling ! Pm so sorry,” cried Harold. 
“ I couldn’t help it. I simply couldn’t help it. You 
looked so sweet! ” 

He was still on his knees with his bright hair all 
ruffled, and his ardent eyes alight with love. 

‘‘ You must never touch me like that again,” she 
whispered, still half terrified. 

won’t! I swear I won’t,” cried the boy. 
‘‘ Oh ! Sybil. . . 

The two were in their chairs again presently, with 
a full yard and a half between them. No indiscreet 
footman coming noiselessly to mend the fire would 
have had a word to say when he got back to the pan- 


326 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


try. But Sybil was conscious that yet one more 
stage had been passed. 

How it was all to end she had no more idea than 
Harold. For herself she could not conceive that 
three hundred pounds a year would not be ample for 
all needs, particularly with what Harold had called 
her own “ fourpence,” but elder persons had been so 
superior upon the subject that she had given up say- 
ing so. She had often got at opinions in the most 
artless manner and from the most unlikely people — 
opinions as to the cost of houses and the upkeep of 
a garden; and it seemed to her always that three 
hundred pounds a year meant wealth. Still, she 
said so no more. 

The afternoon closed in as they sat there, dis- 
cussing the significance of the visit of the three men. 


CHAPTER V 


OOMETHING of the same despair that had visited 
Algy on a previous occasion, fell upon us three 
as we approached Crowston. In the train we had 
been comparatively cheerful and had decided upon 
our plan of action. It would be best, we agreed, 
that Chris should do most of the talking; he was so 
very Lay, that it seemed probable he would be more 
effective with the country gentlemen than avowed 
priests could ever be ; and Chris had sketched gener- 
ally what he proposed to say and at what points we 
should support him. 

I said one word to him on recent events. ‘‘ You 
have heard about Esher ? 

He nodded. 

But from the moment we entered the motor, even 
Chris became a little depressed, and by the time that 
we were- spinning through the park, he sat silent al- 
together. For a well-padded motor and an English 
park are perhaps, above all else, the two things most 
calculated to induce a materialistic frame of mind. 
They are so supremely comfortable, so adequate 
to lower needs, so entirely representative of imagi- 
nation fettered to the requirements of the body. 

327 


328 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


How hardly shall they who have motors and parks 
— ! Past Dick’s rather large head I saw woods 
and bracken slip noiselessly by, and I knew that 
every branch was, so to speak, named and numbered. 
I saw a few anxious rabbits see-sawing back to their 
holes in the autumn light and knew that these too 
were the private possession of the man we were com- 
ing to see — his little incarnate interests. And the 
errand on which we came was to the effect that his 
son proposed to relinquish all rights to these things 
and all that they stood for and to devote himself to 
praising God. It was grotesque. 

I gained a certain consolation from Chris’s pres- 
ence beside me. Though he was silent, I knew that 
there was in him no thought of wavering. To a 
stranger nothing could appear more completely secu- 
lar and conventional than this trim, well-dressed 
man, with his little pointed beard, and well-blacked 
boots, and trousers with a crease down the front; 
and yet I, who had known him now for ten years, 
understood that beneath that exterior lay what was 
perhaps the most remarkable character of my ac- 
quaintance — a man who looked on the world from 
an angle that very few persons have reached. It re- 
assured me to feel him there. 

The house was one more weight upon my soul. 
It was so very large and square and heavy. 
Through the dining-room windows I caught a 


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329 


glimpse of a table laid with linen and silver, gleam- 
ing and dancing in the rich firelight. Above rose 
the tiers of windows, very Grecian and solid. 
Then, as the motor slackened and stopped, there 
was the porch and a stout butler. 

We took off our coats in the silent and leisurely 
hall. There were horns all round it and pikes 
above the line of wigged and be-jeweled portraits. 
And there a large wood fire burned in the chimney. 
As I followed Dick through the baize door on the 
left, I heard another door open behind me and, turn- 
ing, caught a glimpse of a girl’s face. But I was 
not absolutely certain who she was. We went on 
through the ante-room and found ourselves in the 
library. 

Mr. Banister will be with you immediately, 
sir,” said the butler. 

This room was really the climax of all. It had a 
high, fine ceiling, heavily corniced. Between the 
three windows stood two tall book-cases, grated with 
brass wire. It was plain that they were never 
opened ; and it was those that gave the room the dig- 
nity of a library. I conjectured to myself that they 
contained volumes of early Victorian divinity and 
travel. (Algy, a little later, informed me with gen- 
ial laughter that I was right.) The rest of the room 
was furnished with sporting engravings heavily 
framed, low, leather-fringed book-cases ill-filled with 


330 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


bound numbers of magazines and the series called 

Badminton/’ gun-cases, mahogany tables and 
chairs and large metal boxes. The Turkey carpet 
was deep and noiseless. A sober red fire seemed to 
meditate to itself in the hearth beyond the brass fen- 
der, and a couple of green-shaded lamps stood upon 
tables, though the sun was not yet gone down. 

I am a strong believer in the significance of rooms ; 
and this, in which I found myself, corroborated ex- 
actly all that I knew of Algy’s father. The motor, 
the park, the Corinthian porch and the two rooms 
through which we had passed had been like a cres- 
cendo of music leading to this climax; and I found 
the climax worthy of its introduction. 

Dick was looking at a photograph on the yellow 
marble mantlepiece, with that furtive eagerness 
that we all show in a strange house. 

‘‘ Theo,” he said. 

I went and looked at it too. Yes, it was surely 
Theo. It was a stoutish young man in a militia uni- 
form, with a smooth, childish face on which there 
was less expression than is conceivable on a human 
countenance. It was the face of a perfectly con- 
tented animal. He held his sword trappings gath- 
ered up in his left hand. There is really no more to 
be said about it. Yet it fascinated me. 

It seemed to me extraordinarily pathetic. Here 
was the model son, deceased, the pattern of what this 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


331 


old man wished his sons to be; and here were we, 
three Papists, come to announce that another of his 
sons, the successor of this militia young man, who 
should have followed in his brother’s square-planted 
footsteps, intended to take up a life that would ap- 
pear to his father as nothing else than one of wicked 
insanity. And yet we were quite certain . . . 

and so was he. . . . 

Chris was standing a little apart from us, upon 
the hearth-rug, a reassuring figure enough to a secu- 
larly minded man; yet it was from his lips that the 
cruel news was to fall. He was staring down now 
into the fire, self-contained and thoughtful. He 
looked up suddenly. 

‘‘ Remember, Dick, you begin. Then bring me 
in, and I’ll take it up.” 

‘‘ You’ll do as you said in the train? ” I asked. 

“Of course. I shan’t meet him on the lower 
ground until he’s had his chance.” 

And so we waited. 

Again and again I tried to represent to my own 
imagination what would be likely to pass through 
the mind of the old man; and again and again I 
failed. I could conjecture nothing except blind re- 
volt and bewilderment. I understood perfectly how 
he would loathe it — why, every arrangement my 
eyes fell upon in the room told me that. He would 


332 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


honestly believe that his son was about to degrade 
himself below the level of a man, that he proposed, 
in his wild insanity, to practice a self-mutilation 
with regard to all for which he was created and en- 
dowed more fantastic and far more inexcusable than 
the morbidities of a pagan. That a Banister should 
become a Catholic was a heavy enough blow, that 
he should become a priest was worse, that he should 
become a Contemplative monk was intolerable. 

I will not deny that once and again in those mo- 
ments of waiting the bitter doubt surged up as to 
whether we were not all wrong together, as to 
whether it were not Algy’s place after all to remain 
here, to shoot birds, to marry a wife, to beget chil- 
dren and to put on weight; but I am pleased to 
think, looking back on it all, that I treated the thought 
as the faithlessness that it was. For I remembered 
our conversations, Algy’s revelations of himself, 
the incidents that took place at St. Hugh’s, at Am- 
plefield and elsewhere — above all that amazing 
little incident at Esher, when, for the first time in 
his life a man’s passion had rushed upon him, fully- 
armed, and he had vanquished it. There was no 
question that he had vanquished it; his recovery in 
Dick’s presence, like the recoil of a spring, his sane, 
steady, ardent letter to me three weeks later. Why, 
the thing was plain. He had met his adversary 
once, face to face; and the rest of his life was to 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


333 


be a deliberate conflict. I thought of all these 
things — in fact, of all that strange and mystical 
process of events by which a soul climbs to the light, 
that history of an inner life at the time as bewilder- 
ing as a jumbled puzzle, afterwards as convincing 
as the same puzzle set in order. 

There was a vibration somewhere; then a heavy 
footstep on the strip of uncarpeted board outside the 
door. Then the handle turned, and a tall old man 
in a dark Norfolk suit came forward into the room. 

! 

Hostility is as indefinable as love and as unmistak- 
able ; and here was hostility in every line and feature. 
Oh! he was courteous; he made a little stiff bow to 
each of us, though he did not take our hands ; he saw 
us seated, before he took his own place in the chair 
to the right of the fire — the chair, no doubt, from 
which he conducted all his less formal business; he 
said a few proper words as to the inclemency of the 
day and his hopes as to our comfort coming up ; he 
even thanked us (though hostility blazed again be- 
neath his courteous words) for the interest we took 
in his son and for the trouble to which we were put- 
ting ourselves on his behalf. It was an admirable 
display of the suspicious Englishman dominated by 
the gentleman, and the fatuous well-bred dignity of 
it all brought a lump to my throat. 


334 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


I understand, gentlemen, that you have news to 
give me of my son? ” 

It is very kind of you to receive us, sir,’’ began 
Dick ; but the old man waved that away. 

“ I could do nothing else,” he said. I shall be 
very much obliged — ” 

“ It was I who received him into the churcli, I 
must tell you,” went on Dick, a little hurriedly. 
‘‘ I don’t at all want to conceal that.” 

The hostility in the other’s arching eyes seemed to 
concentrate itself into two gleaming points, and I 
saw his lips tighten beneath his gray mustache. 

‘‘ But it is Mr. Dell here,” continued Dick, ‘‘ who 
has had most to do with him since.” 

Mr. Banister made the faintest inclination towards 
Chris. Chris lifted his chin from his hand; he was 
sitting directly opposite our host, with us two priests 
between. 

‘‘ You won’t think me impudent, I hope,” he said 
in his distinct well-bred voice, if I tell you how 
fond I am of him, and what a fine — ” He broke 
off suddenly. ‘‘ Well, this is not the point. Here 
is our news in a sentence. Your son has asked us 
to tell you that he wishes to go into a monastery.” 

There fell an absolute silence. I had no idea that 
Chris meant to bring it out like that, and I do not 
think that he had so meant, until that moment. I 
looked at him nervously; he was sitting bolt upright, 


THE CONVERSATIONALISTS 335 


his chin a little tilted; and there was not in his ap- 
pearance the faintest sign of that inexplicable shame 
in which I myself struggled. Dick drew a long 
breath and remained still, staring at the hearth-rug. 
Mr. Banister too, remained still, petrified. 

Chris’s voice went on; it had a strange little ring 
in it. 

“ I have no doubt this sounds horrible to you, sir. 
I am very sorry for that ; but I cannot help it. May 
I say a word or two before telling you what it all 
means? ” 

There was no answer or movement. Chris went 
on immediately. 

Please remember this, Mr. Banister, though I 
am afraid it may not be of much comfort. These 
gentlemen here asked me to speak in their name — I 
am a layman, you see. . . . Well, please re- 

member that though, in the opinion of Englishmen, 
at the present time, to become a monk means to be- 
come a fool, if not a knave, it was not always so; 
nor is it so considered in other countries by those 
who have kept what was once the Faith of all Christ- 
endom. ... I know you think them all terribly 
mistaken ; but I ask you to make allowances and to 
remember that Christians who think as you do are 
in a very considerable minority, even at the present 
day. There is not one good Catholic — ” 


336 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


He broke off suddenly, eying the old man. We 
were in the thick of it, with a vengeance. 

Mr. Banister had moved in his seat. As I re- 
member now the look on his face, I think I may say 
that I have never in my life seen such an admirable 
example of self-control. There was loathing there 
— such a loathing as that with which a man looks 
upon a piece of mean treachery or a disgusting out- 
rage — there was anger fierce as fire and there was 
torturing bewilderment ; and yet these three passions 
were held down and restrained by that slender thing 
which we call breeding. His face worked a little; 
but he was master of himself ; and though his voice 
shook, it was neither broken nor passionate. 

“ Tell me what it means, sir.’’ 

Chris, without moving a muscle, raised his voice a 
little, not to the note of defiance, but to what I may 
call a proclamatory tone. His words may be con- 
sidered by some — bad form; but I did not find 
them so. 

‘‘ It means this, Mr. Banister — that your son has 
been asked by God, if we are right, to the highest 
position that a human soul can reach on earth ; that 
he has been called, as our Saviour said, to forsake 
father and mother and lands and wife and children 
and to become a crucified disciple of a crucified Lord. 
. . . Yes, you dispute all that; I know it. Ido 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


337 


not ask you to believe it. But we do ask you to be- 
lieve that your son believes it. That is something 
to be proud of, surely! You would be proud of 
your son if he died for his country. I ask you to be 
proud of him for even wishing to die for God. You 
would be proud even if he died for a mistake; so 
long as he did so willingly and gallantly. Of course 
you would be grieved, as you are grieved now; but 
there is something stronger than grief. . . . 

Even if all this was a mistake too, if we were all 
wrong in our religion and you were right — well, 
even then you should be proud.’^ 

Chris was splendid. I shook to hear him. When 
I looked again for an instant at the father, I was 
shocked at the change in his face ; and yet still there 
was nothing but to admire. But his ruddy color 
had turned almost to ashes ; and the lines were ter- 
ribly deep. He swallowed once in his throat. 

Tell me what it means,” he said again, in that 
trembling voice. 

I have told you, sir ; it means that your son says 
good-bye to the world as he knows it ; that he leaves 
everything except God ; that he gives himself up to 
prayer. He will not be a preacher, though he will 
be a priest. There will be nothing at all for you to 
be proud of in him, in the ordinary way. The world 
will never hear of him again, even when he dies. 
But it is for what comes after death that he will do 

22 


338 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


all this. ... Of course we may be wrong; it 
may be a mistake that he is making in attempting 
this life at all; in that case he will not live it. But 
we do not think that it is ; that is why I have spoken 
so plainly. These two priests, as well as one or two 
others who have been consulted, are confident that 
he is right.’’ 

Mr. Banister moved a little in his red-leather 
chair; he put one gaitered foot over the other. 
Then he struck the first regrettable note. 

“ I suppose you will say, sir, that he has not been 
persuaded.” 

Chris flashed back like a rapier. 

‘‘ On the contrary, I say that he has to a large 
extent. Personally I have done my utmost — as 
soon as I saw what was in his mind.” 

Mr. Banister uttered a little sound. The answer 
took him plainly by surprise; and it was then that 
I saw clearly that Chris’s appeal had failed. I sup- 
pose it meant nothing to him at all; it was the talk 
of a Catholic — that was all — to be put aside like 
any other professional jargon. Chris saw it too, 
for his teeth closed, and a little hollow came out at 
the cheek nearest to me; his eyes were bright as 
sparks. But he made another effort. 

‘‘ Mr. Banister, I beg of you not to misunderstand 
us. Would you yourself try to persuade your son to 
do what you thought right, if you saw him hesitat- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


339 


ing? Surely you have done so already! I cannot 
imagine your not having done so. In that sense, 
and in that sense only have we — have I tried to 
persuade him. . . . May I tell you again what 

we are asking? It is this. We do not ask you to 
believe that your son is right, but only that he is sin- 
cere. He will come down here the moment you ask 
him. . . . We can take back a letter this even- 

ing, if you wish, and he will be with you to-morrow. 
He will remain here as long as you like, to talk 
things over. I am quite sure that if you will tell 
him all that is in your mind, he will tell you all that 
is in his ; and I am quite sure too, that you will find 
him entirely sincere. Please bear in mind that he 
has nothing in the world to gain by doing what he 
intends — in fact, everything to lose.” 

The old man’s head had sunk forward a little on 
his neck. I could see that Chris had made no im- 
pression at all. There was an uncomfortable sug- 
gestiveness in his look. He was more master of 
himself than ever; but it was what theologians call 
a vitiosa victoria. ... he had conquered one 
passion by another. 

When Chris ended there was a little silence. I 
counted seven ticks on the delicate black marble clock 
on the mantelpiece. Then Mr. Banister began to 
speak. 


340 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


You have said what you have to say, Mr. 
. . . Mr. Dell; I have heard everything. Now 

I must speak. The boy wants to become a monk. 
. . . I ... I had feared that. ... I 
was almost prepared to hear that. When he became 
a . . a Catholic I feared that. . . . And 
now you must let me speak.’’ 

His lips mumbled together a little ; and I began to 
prepare myself for a storm. I saw that he had been 
able to restrain himself up to now, partly because the 
shock was so severe. Now he had time to recover; 
and we should have news of it. Then it burst 
out. 

. . . I can find no words to use strong 

enough, gentlemen. I could not have believed it! 
I have often heard that Catholics did such things; 
but I have never come across a case before. . . .” 

(He was upright again now in his chair; and his 
eyes blazed. ) Here you three gentlemen, all 
middle-aged and experienced, have set yourselves to 
persuade my boy to become a monk . . . you 
have talked him round . . . of course you 

have; you tell me so yourselves. You have not be- 
come monks yourselves . . . no, no; all that 

fine life which you say I ought to be proud of for 
my boy’s sake, that is not for you. But instead you 
have set yourself to talk my boy over. He’s the 
eldest son . , . you know that . . . you 


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341 


know all about the entail, I’ll be bound. Can 
you look me in the face, gentlemen, and say that 
you do not ? ” 

He paused an instant. 

''We know all about the entail, Mr. Banister,” 
came Chris’s level voice. 

" Yes, you know all about that,” exulted Mr. 
Banister, “ and so you have set yourself to persuade 
my boy to become a monk.” (His voice rose 
higher; he gripped the arms of his chair.) " Now 
I tell you this, gentlemen ; and you may take it from 
me. I do not mind saying these things to you even 
though you are my guests for a time. You must 
take the consequences of coming at all on such an er- 
rand. It is this that I have to say. You shall not 
have what you want. It shall be stopped if there is 
justice in England. I shall write to my solicitors. 
All England shall hear of it. There shall be ques- 
tions asked in the Houses of Parliament. Things 
like this are not so easily done nowadays. And as 
for you, gentlemen, who have tried to work this 
trick, I have no words that I can use. You have 
come down here trying to get me to take it quietly ! 
Well, I will not take it quietly. It is an outrage. 
You have my answer, gentlemen. If you have no 
more to say, I will ask you to leave my house.” 

He sprang to his feet and stood there, a fine stal- 
wart old man, a monument of splendid wrath and 


342 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


straightforwardness. And yet, though I shook 
with anger myself, I saw the pathos of the thing. It 
was so gallant and so stupid. I wondered whether 
we had been right in approaching him like this at all. 
Five minutes hence — ! 

Then Chris’s voice broke in again, level and 
low. 

“ May I ask you to give us a few minutes more, 
Mr. Banister? We have not nearly done yet.” 

I see no need.” 

“We have more to say, sir. A great deal more. 
Please sit down again, if you will be so kind.” 

The old man did not move. 

I looked across at Chris. He too was as pale as 
ashes now ; it was as if he were the culprit ; and yet 
his voice was completely under his control. I looked 
at Dick; and there I saw a model of depressed 
patience ; he was still staring moodily at the hearth- 
rug; but I could see that he was meditating a 
remark. Then out it came, abruptly. 

“ You have said some very sharp things, Mr. 
Banister. It is only right that you should hear what 
we have to say in our defense.” (His voice sud- 
denly became peremptory. ) “ May we ask you 

once more to sit down? ” 

Mr. Banister sat down. 

“ Now Chris,” said Dick. 

Chris drew a long breath; lifted his eyes once to 


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343 


the old man’s face, then fixed them on the fire and 
began again. 

First,” he said, “ as to your remark about our 
not being monks. I am afraid I shall never make 
you believe that we are sincere in the lives we live, 
and that all of us would be monks if we thought Al- 
mighty God desired it. Perhaps it may make some 
difference to your opinion if I tell you that I myself 
have done my best to be one — that I lived the life 
for eight months. . . .” He paused to let that 

sink in ; then he added ; I only left then because I 
was told I had no — that I should never be happy 
there. However, it isn’t our point now to justify 
ourselves.” 

Chris leaned back; and I saw that the old man 
was watching him, though he said nothing. 

“ Now as to your second point,” went on Chris ; 
let us get that quite clear. I understand that you 
think that, in accordance with our reputation, we 
have overpersuaded your son to become a monk, in 
order to get this property into our hands, that we 
knew all about the entail and so on, and have hoped 
that the Church would finally get at any rate the 
greater part of your property, in the event of your 
death. Is that right ? ” 

He glanced up ; as Mr. Banister nodded curtly. 

“ Now I am extraordinarily sorry you thought 
that. It is rather — er — elementary. Frankly, I 


344 


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hoped you wouldn’t at any rate say so outright with- 
out proof. . . . Well, I was wrong. It only 

remains for me to put you right.” 

Chris deliberately unbuttoned his coat and drew 
out of his breast-pocket a letter; then, still holding 
it, he went on. 

Here is a letter your son gave me to give to you, 
if by any chance you did make that accusation. I 
will leave it with you when I go. But I will tell you 
the purport of it now. It is this. Your son re- 
nounces all claim to the property, in the event of his 
becoming professed as a monk ; he states in this let- 
ter his willingness to sign any legal documents that 
may be necessary for that end; he suggests to you 
that you should make over to him an annuity until 
his death of one hundred and twenty pounds a year, 
so that he shall not be an actual burden upon his 
brethen in Religion; but he leaves that entirely to 
you. Should you decline to do this, my friend here, 
Monsignor Yolland, who is a man of considerable 
wealth, has undertaken to pay your son that annuity 
himself. ... I think, Mr. Banister, if you will 
kindly consider these points, you will think it only 
right to withdraw the accusation you have just 
made.” 

Then Chris leaned forward and delivered his last 
thrust with extreme deliberation, pausing between 
his sentences. 


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345 


‘‘ Please understand what this means. ... It 
means that this place will remain in Protestant hands 
— in your younger son’s hands, instead of in Catho- 
lic hands. . . . Do you not think that a good 

arrangement, Mr. Banister, from your point of 
view ? ” 

Still, without looking at the old man, Chris rose 
out of his chair high enough to prop the letter on the 
mantelpiece, and sat down again. Then I too, 
looked at Mr. Banister. 

I do not think I have ever seen a man more aston- 
ished. The hostility was still in his face, but it was 
blended with amazement. His old lips were parted, 
and he was staring straight at Chris. I once saw a 
man fall heavily off a bicycle, and as I ran to pick 
him up he looked at me with just that expression. 
I do not believe that even so Mr. Banister under- 
stood all that was implied; he only perceived that 
somehow the tables were turned. But he said noth- 
ing. 

Chris, after one look, had dropped his eyes again. 
Then he went on quietly. 

“ Think over it a little, sir. I do not believe you 
will be hard upon your son when you see what all 
this means. It will be just as if he had died. I 
don’t know how the things are arranged ; perhaps a 
deed of gift will be necessary — or whatever it is 
called. In any case, as I say, it will be as if he had 


346 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


died. Your younger son, of whom he has told me, 
will inherit everything. It will be a few years be- 
fore the final profession takes place in any case; so 
that there is no hurry. All your son asks of you 
now is leave to come down here again for a month 
or so until his reception can be arranged, to . . . 

to say good-bye. The Prior of the Carthusians — 
which is the order your son wishes to enter — has 
consented, provisionally, to receive him soon after 
Christmas. I may say he has the highest opinion of 
your son.'^ 

Chris was talking on, I could see, rather more ver- 
bosely than was necessary, in order to let the other 
have time to take in the situation. Already the old 
man was beginning to do so; he shifted his position 
a little; he passed his hand over his mouth once or 
twice. Then he spoke ; and his voice shook. 

“ This ... all this . . . makes a dif- 

ference, gentlemen. ... I ... I do not 
think I quite understand. ... You . . you 

must give me time. . . 

Of course,” said Chris genially, ‘‘ I was afraid 
the whole thing would be a shock. But you will un- 
derstand presently. May I just tell you again.” 

Once more, quite slowly and deliberately, Chris 
enumerated the points of Algy’s letter; and once 
more he explained that all claim to the property was 
to be given up, that the question of annuity was 


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347 


left entirely to Mr. Banister’s discretion and that 
Harold would inherit. 

I could see the old man almost step by step recon- 
structing his ideas. He showed it by his face and 
movements. His features resettled themselves, his 
lips moved a little in a kind of remorseness and 
the hostility, though not the suspicion, began to die 
out of his face. Once he made a motion towards 
the letter that rested, conspicuously white, at the 
foot of a bronze nymph upon the mantelpiece; and, 
as Chris half-rose to give it to him, he motioned him 
back once more. When Chris finished, the other 
was himself again. 

. . . I thank you very much, Mr. Dell. 

It is all very bewildering still to me. But . . . 

but I think it is clear enough. I understand you to 
say that there is to be no claim upon the property at 
all?” 

“ Just so.” 

Then . . . then, gentlemen, I must confess 

I was wrong in my suspicions. . . . I. . . . 

beg to express my regret for what I said. . . . 

And . . . and my younger son will inherit ? ” 

Exactly.” 

Mr. Banister stood up; and we rose with him. 
He took the letter from the mantelpiece. His hand 
shook violently. 

‘‘ This is all very surprising to me, gentlemen. 


348 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


Of course — of course there will be no trouble about 
the annuity. . . . But . . . but you must 

give me a little time. ... I must talk with my 
wife. She will be very much grieved of course, as 
I am myself at your news ; but I must confess that all 
this makes a considerable difference. . . . Will 

you excuse me, gentlemen, for a few minutes. I 
will speak with her now. . . He glanced at 

the clock. ‘‘ You have still an hour, I think. Will 
you excuse me? ” 

He hurried from the room. 

(HI) 

The victory was won ; that was certain. And yet 
I was conscious of a disagreeable sensation. It may 
sound priggish to say so, and yet it is a fact that one 
is always rather disappointed when a human being 
takes with alacrity a lower ground than he need. 
This Mr. Banister had emphatically done. If he 
had continued to insult us I should have wondered 
less. But his change from righteous indignation to 
incoherent complacency was an unpleasant argument 
on the cynic’s side. It seemed that the property was 
what mattered — nothing else. 

I told you so,” I said, rather gloomily to Chris. 

Chris smiled pleasantly. 

‘‘ My dear man, you were quite right and I was 
wrong. He had his chance, though, didn’t he? ” 


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349 


“ Oh ! certainly he had his chance/’ 

'' I think it’s a beastly shame,” said Dick. The 
whole thing took him by surprise.” 

Chris smiled again. 

“ Oh ! I’ve no doubt he’d have been able to ar- 
range his emotions better if he’d had time; but — 
Well, it doesn’t matter.” 

“ He’ll give Algy a good send-off,” I said rather 
drearily. 

As we stood waiting there for the old man’s re- 
turn, once more I began to meditate. I saw very 
plainly what would happen. Opposition was dead ; 
that is to say real opposition; though, of course, it 
was plain that the whole thing was not exactly to 
Mr. Banister’s mind. But I saw that there would 
be no more real trouble. Algy would come down 
here in a few days, his father would meet him with 
chastened affection, would treat him as a spiritual in- 
valid who needed humoring and would despatch him 
at last, sufficiently cheerfully, to St. Hugh’s. Then 
he would settle down again to what was to him the 
real business of life, to which all other considerations 
were secondary, to the cultivation of the Banister 
Family and Estate. Dear me! What a deal of 
Conventionalism there was in the world. 

I looked at Dick. 

Well?” I said. 

Dick groaned softly. 


350 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


Yes; and now for the girl/’ he said. 

I had completely forgotten Miss Maple. Then I 
remembered the girl’s face I had seen for one instant 
loolc through the hall-door. 

‘‘And she’s here?” I said. “You’re certain?” 

He nodded. 

That set me off again, and I sat down this time to 
consider myself, watching Dick fingering Theo’s 
photograph and Chris, his head in his hands, leaning 
forward as his manner was, over the mantelpiece. 
We looked singularly unlike victors, I thought. 
Then, as I still meditated, there came the footsteps 
again, and the old man came in, grave, yet with 
suppressed radiance in his face. 

“ My wife thinks as I do,” he said abruptly. 
“ though it is a great shock, of course. But she 
would like to see you, gentlemen. Will you come 
this way? ” 

We rose and went after him. We passed through 
the ante-room, hearing as we did so the clink of tea- 
things from the hall opposite, and then turned aside 
through another door which the old man had open 
for us, and I, at any rate, as I came through, saw 
that something was going to happen. 

It was that same room in which Algy had made 
his announcement a few months ago ; but it was 
shuttered now and curtained. An ample woman sat 
upon the sofa opposite, beside the fire, with Algy’s 


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351 


letter open in her lap, and behind her stood a girl, 
and, after one glance at the old lady, I saw that it was 
not in her that the storm center lay; though during 
the following interview I kept my eyes chiefly upon 
Mrs. Banister, yet my whole attention was given to 
the other. 

How hard it is to describe an interior crisis which 
one witnesses in another person ! Let me first give 
an account of Miss Maple, as I saw her now for the 
first time. I need not say that Dick’s swiftly in- 
drawn breath behind me as he set eyes on her was 
not necessary for telling me who she was. 

She was tallish and of an excellent figure, rounded 
and very upright, carrying her head superbly; she 
was in some softly brown dress with lace at throat 
and wrists; her hair was abundant and of a fine 
brown-gold. Her face I despair of describing; it 
was as a set mask ; the features were good, with reso- 
lute eyes and mouth. There she stood for an in- 
stant; then she sat down abruptly, still behind the 
sofa, leaning one arm on the table, yet in such a way 
that her face was still visible in the soft lamplight. 
She kept her eyes for the most part on Dick, though 
she glanced two or three times at Chris and myself. 
There were no introductions beyond a hasty enumer- 
ation of our names ; Mr. Banister was too much ex- 
cited for more. 

Then he took up his position on the hearthrug. 


352 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


We sat down opposite his wife. 

Now for the conversation that took place. In- 
deed I can hardly remember it. Algy was no longer 
the point of interest for me. Briefly, I remember, 
Mr. Banister touched on our message and asked 
Chris to repeat himself. This he did; I remember 
hearing the arguments enumerated, the description 
of Algy’s resolution, his proposals and the general 
result that Crowston would pass to Harold. Mrs. 
Banister gave utterance to little sounds now and 
again. This went on, with question and answer, 
for, I suppose, about a quarter of an hour or twenty 
minutes. 

But the real point, as I have said, lay in the girl 
behind the sofa. It is simply impossible to say how 
I knew what I knew ; it was enough that I knew it ; 
and, as I learned afterwards, Dick and Chris knew 
it also. The marvel was that the excited old couple 
did not ; for the girl’s atmosphere was as eloquent as 
a speech. There are deafnesses other than physical. 

For this atmosphere dominated everything for me. 
Miss Maple’s personality must be an unusually 
strong one, for I do not think that one of us three 
for the time that we were in that room considered 
Algy more than a secondary figure in the situation ; 
his intentions and actions seemed, to me at least, only 
of interest so far as they affected this girl. As for 
the parents, they became simply nonentities. How 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


353 


can I express this? ... It was as when Duse 
comes on the stage. 

The whole thing became horrible. I remembered 
that I had doubted as to whether she loved Algy, and 
I wondered at myself. Other things, no doubt, con- 
spired to give driving-force to her central passion; 
she was getting on in years; her nature demanded 
luxury; it is peculiarly distressing to be thwarted 
twice. But these things were not the point. The 
point was that she had come to understand Algy, 
considered by most of his friends the fool of the 
family, whom she herself had once despised as an un- 
couth schoolboy, as indeed he had been. But now 
— well these things are not the business of a priest, 
except so far as they affect his duties. But I as- 
sure you that it was no longer grotesque that she 
should love this boy ; the power that goes to make a 
Contemplative is a remarkable thing. 

. . . I glanced up at her again. 

She was perfectly motionless. Her cheek rested 
on her hand and her eyes were fixed on Chris, who 
talked. Her face was briefly in the shaded light, 
yet I could make it out. Then those eyes moved to 
mine; and I looked away. I felt entirely con- 
temptible. 

I had not an idea what she would do ; and I knew 
that no human being could prevent a catastrophe if 

she chose to precipitate it. She might say every- 
23 


354 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


thing outright in a minute or two ; or she might say- 
something, or she might say nothing. That was her 
affair. We could only wait and see. Dick was 
motionless and speechless, and I was not surprised. 

Once Mr. Banister turned to him. 

You saw him last week, you told me? ’’ 

‘‘ I saw him last week,” repeated Dick heavily, 
with his eyes cast down; and that was the only sen- 
tence he uttered. 

Chris did the rest of the talking, with the excep- 
tion of one or two remarks which I had. to make in 
answer to a direct question, and he did it marvel- 
ously well. His lierve was astonishing, for he 
knew even more pungently than we did the acute 
crisis which hung over us. At every moment, he 
told me afterwards, he expected the crash. One 
word too much, one instant yielding on the part of 
the girl’s will, and we should be in the midst of an 
unforgettable scene. But the moments went by, and 
so far there was outward peace. The two old folk 
talked and questioned, he with an excited compla- 
cency that threw off more and more of the disguise 
of verbal regrets he still attempted to retain, she 
with a certain tremulousness and bewilderment that 
was more creditable. Oh ! these people were terrible 
conventionalists after all. Nothing really mattered 
to them but the standard by which they had always 
lived; they did not care about Algy, they cared only 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


355 


about Banister. It was grievous that a Banister 
should turn Papist and monk; but it would be in- 
finitely more grievous if a Papist Banister should in- 
herit Crowston. They still talked of the necessity 
of consideration, but it was a conventional phrase, 
no more. I perceived more and more plainly that 
the thought of Harold’s succession drowned all else 
in its blaze of glory. Even the grimness of the sit- 
uation could not hinder a certain faint amusement in 
my mind at the thought of Chris’s appeal just now 
on the higher ground. These people cared nothing 
for Algy ; it was Banister they adored. And as for 
this girl’s agony, they were not even aware of it. 

Towards the end this came out clearly, and with it 
came the climax, as a wave that hangs suspended 
above a gulf. 

The old man turned abruptly to the girl. 

‘‘ Well, Miss Mary,” he said genially; “ and what 
is your opinion ? ” 

There was an instant’s dead silence. I lost my 
head completely. I perceived only that the girl 
would have to speak, and with that speaking would 
come the crash. Her voice at least must betray her, 
and then she would betray herself ; for she had seen 
during the talk her last rays of hope die. 

The atmosphere grew tense and electric, tenfold 
more than before. Even Mrs. Banister moved her 
head uneasily. I saw the girl, her face gone sud- 


356 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


denly white as paper, lift her cheek from her hand. 
I heard Dick draw a slow whistling breath. 

“Well, Miss Mary?’' came the sturdy old voice 
again. 

Then Chris recovered himself. It was like a Di- 
vine Interposition. It was rude, of course, but we 
had done with such considerations now, and his tone 
made it as little rude as possible. He interrupted — 

“ We’re to see Algy to-night,” he said to the old 
man, “ and we want, if you will allow us, to take 
some definite message. . . 

I heard no more. I saw the girl’s face flush to 
scarlet and her half-opened lips close and her hand 
pass over her eyes. 

“ Well, well,” said the old man. “ I don’t want to 
be hard on the boy . . .” 

He stopped, and looked at his watch irresolutely. 

“We will have a word again before you go,” he 
said, “ but we must have a cup of tea now.” 

As we passed out to the hall, where Harold and 
Sybil were waiting, I could not forbear from one 
glance backwards. The girl was standing now, mo- 
tionless and erect, looking after us ; and the sight of 
her hurt me like a knife. Yet, for the first and last 
time in my life I blessed God for His gift of Conven- 
tionalism. It had saved three persons that after- 
noon from irremediable disaster. 


EPILOGUE 


TT was in the following July that I went down 
again to Crowston to take news of Algy. 
Mrs. Banister herself invited me to do so. I had 
stayed the previous night at St. Hugh’s, on purpose 
to make a first-hand report. Let me describe first 
what I saw there, for it was not in the least the same 
thing that I had described to the Banisters. 

I stayed the night in the guest-house, not seeing 
Algy that night at all, except in such disguise that I 
did not know him. I only watched from the high 
west gallery of the church that strange leisurely pro- 
cession of white figures, hooded and hidden, pass in 
beneath me, each bearing his lantern ; and, after that 
two hours’ deliberate ceremony of the night-office, in 
the depth of the summer night, hearing the sonorous 
rolling psalmody rock like a ship in the high nave, I 
watched that same leisurely and steadfast procession 
of princes come out. But of his face I caught no 
glimpse. 

Then, on the next morning after breakfast, I 
was taken to the parlor, where a year ago, in shy 
bewilderment, we four had stood together. 

He came in presently, very naturally, smiling, in 

357 


358 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


his heavy white habit, newly shaved on cheeks and 
head, looking strangely ageless and remote; and I 
saw after a minute’s conversation that that inex- 
plicable veil, hanging always between the inner and 
the outer, was fallen between us. The experience 
at Esher had turned the boy into a man ; but it was 
more than manhood that had come to him here. It 
was as was said long ago, Touch me not. . . .” 

(Is this exaggerated? I think it will not seem so 
to any who have talked with enclosed Religious. I 
am aware that this book is written with all the odds 
against it ; it deals with a hero who only comes into 
his own under circumstances which to most people 
appear the very heights of morbid folly. But I can 
only set down my impressions. Here was Algy, in 
one sense the same as he had always been, a natural 
and slightly clumsy young man ; in another sense 
entirely different. Few things are more dreary than 
dried seaweed ; and few things more delightful than 
seaweed in its proper element, alert and sensitive to 
its furthest fringe.) 

He asked a few questions about his people, ex- 
tremely quietly. 

I am going to Crowston to-day,” I said. 

They’ve asked me to stay the night.” 

“ Give them my love,” said Algy. 

Then he asked whether the engagement between 
Harold and Sybil had been recognized. 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


359 


You know he’ll make an excellent landlord,” 
said Algy, smiling. 

I suppose so,” I said. “ And Sybil Markham 
will do very well, from what I’ve seen of her.” 

“ She’s charming,” said Algy. “ Then the en- 
gagement’s recognized ? ” 

I told him yes; but that the marriage would be 
delayed until Algy’s own profession. 

‘‘ And Miss Maple? ” he said quite simply. 

‘‘ I have not seen her,” I said diplomatically, 
“ since I was at Crowston last year ” ; and he was 
content with that, fortunately. 

I asked him then about the life ; and he described 
it to me, with the special regulations made for nov- 
ices, the manner in which they were particularly 
looked after and guarded against depression and 
morbidity : he spoke of his novice-master with affec- 
tion. 

And what do they say of your own prospects? ” 
I asked. 

He smiled. 

They say nothing at all,” he said. 

‘‘ But you are happy? ” 

Then his eyes opened a little ; and while he spoke, 
it was as if the old Algy were almost back again. 
His humanity slid back into himself as he spoke of 
the extraordinary content that had come to him. He 
implied that he had been initiated — that he under- 


360 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


stood the point of things at last. ... I knew 
what he meant. There come moments to every 
man, I suppose, when this is so, when every fac- 
ulty, so to speak, is at rest in its object, when per- 
sonality fits life as a key a lock, when life closes gen- 
tly round personality and each explains and under- 
stands perfectly the other. It is not that one knows 
the answer to everything, but rather that there is an 
answer to everything so adequate and yet so tran- 
scendent that there is room for nothing but content. 
That man is happy who finds it so in his course of 
life; it is the best sign of a fulfilled vocation; but 
the souls of Contemplatives, I think, have it more 
completely and continuously than the souls of any 
others. Algy, at least, had found it. 

I said good-bye to him after a few minutes; and 
had a word or two with the Prior before leaving. 

Then I went silently out of the gate, with a huge 
envy in my heart, and climbed into the dog-cart that 
waited. 

All the way in the cross-country train journey to 
Crowston I was thinking of Algy. I had to wait an 
hour or two at Brighton, and still, as I walked in the 
hot streets, I thought of Algy. I was thinking over 
all the times I had seen him since our first meeting 
in the London streets, under the mystical dawn so 
long ago. That dawn, surely, had been full of 
omen. Even then he had shown, though it was only 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 361 


beneath the stress of a very sentimental and unreal 
human love, that instinct for solitude that had led 
him now so far. I had patronized him then as he 
walked beside me in his white frieze coat ; I was far 
from patronizing him now in his white frieze of an- 
other cut. I suppose it is rather superstitious to 
dwell on such details; but I am not quite sure. 

I reached Crowston station at about four, and the 
house a few minutes later, and waited in the hall a 
little while, while Mrs. Banister was found. Then I 
was conducted out to the cedar tree where tea was 
laid. 

Really these people were charmingly friendly and 
broad-minded. There was Harold, looking very 
spruce and cheerful in gray flannel with a rose in 
his buttonhole, who handed me tea and hot cakes; 
there was Mrs. Banister, very particular as to 
whether I took two lumps of sugar or one : we had 
quite a pleasant little argument as to whether the 
general sugariness of a first cup did not make sugar 
in a second cup unnecessary, if proportions were to 
be observed. There was Mr. Banister himself, in 
gray tweed, who pressed upon me a cigar after tea, 
describing to me with considerable though dignified 
humor how he obtained them through a friend. 
There were one or two other people there, too, of no 
importance — I have even forgotten their names — 


362 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


but they were nice, though suspicious. Mr. Morti- 
mer was there, in a black coat and waistcoat with 
white flannel trousers. A racquet lay beside his 
chair. He regarded me as one strange dog regards 
another — he mentally walked on tip-toe, stifY-leg- 
ged, with his frill expanded; but his words were 
smooth as oil ; and he seemed to me a very earnest 
and sincere man. And, lastly, there was Lady 
Brasted who gave me an understanding look when- 
ever our eyes met. 

Mrs. Banister, Harold and myself strolled slowly 
off after tea in the direction of the village; it was 
understood that Mr. BanisteEs conversation should 
be administered to me later. They asked questions, 
of course, and I answered them. I described what 
Algy had to eat and what his cell looked like and 
how the hours of the day and night were spent. 
Harold heard all in silence, and his mother with an 
occasional gentle clicking of the tongue. I could 
see that it was as if I described a lunatic asylum. 
She was sincerely sorry for the poor boy. 

‘‘ I hope he has plenty to eat,’' she said. 

I was silent a moment; then I looked at her, 
and in that instant I saw real motherly tenderness 
and fear surge up in her eyes as she read my answer. 

‘‘ They are very particular about health,” I said 
awkwardly. 

“ But — but do you mean — ? ” 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 363 


Well; I am afraid most people would not think 
it sufficient. But, you know, they live to a great 
age generally. It seems to suit them.’’ 

She said no more; but I began to understand 
better how hard it is to conquer nature. I knew 
quite well that this motherly woman would have had 
her bad moments as she thought of her son — of 
the body she had borne and nursed. ... I was 
thankful that she had no great powers of imagina- 
tion; and I determined I would say even less than 
I had intended upon the physical hardships of St. 
Hugh’s — above all not one word of the little 
scourge. I wondered, too, more than ever, what 
she would say if she could know of what had passed 
at Esher and of her son’s awakening. But then 
she never would know. 

We went down as far as the churchyard gate, 
through the glorious evening sunshine, seeing the 
great cool woods above us on our left, fringed with 
scurrying rabbits — where Algy had dreamed — 
and the village roofs on our right clustering round 
the little Norman church. It was all very feudal 
and opulent and important. A child in a Tam-o’- 
Shanter, carrying a basket of eggs up to the Great 
House, stopped and ducked to Mrs. Banister’s be- 
nignant smile. 

At the gate of the churchyard we stood a moment 
or two in silence. Three yards away rose up an 


364 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


immense white marble cross on which I could see the 
words ‘‘ Theodore, beloved son of,” and then a 
fringe of pink roses hid the names of his parents. 
She looked at it gently and quietly ; then she sighed 
to herself as she turned away. I think she was 
comparing her two elder sons. Yet, after all, she 
had nothing much to complain of from the Banister 
standpoint. Harold was all that could be wished. 

I understood well enough by now why it was they 
had taken it so quietly on the whole and why they 
were so indulgent to myself. Even if Algy had 
never become a Catholic, he would have been but a 
poor master of Crowston, whereas now he had al- 
most atoned for his faith by his departure. 

Harold himself made a very pleasant impression 
on me. He was extremely nice-looking and ex- 
tremely courteous : he hid the contempt,' which I 
knew he felt for his poor brother, quite admirably. 

Mr. Banister himself met us as we re-entered the 
garden, a fine sauntering figure of a man, and a 
few of the details had to be repeated for his benefit ; 
while Harold turned off in the direction of the 
house. I knew later why he had gone, when I met 
Sybil at dinner. 

Dinner was as you may expect. We talked of 
everything under the sun except what was in our 
minds. I had an excellent opportunity of studying 
the future mistress of Crowston, and I found her de- 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 365 


lightful. She was exceedingly pretty, wholesome, 
and well-behaved. In fact, it was almost my only 
opportunity, for she vanished when we came into the 
drawing-room afterwards, simultaneously with Har- 
old, and I perceived them three minutes later in 
the garden that was now darkening beyond the win- 
dows. They made a splendid pair and were ra- 
diantly happy. 

I got a private word or two with Lady Brasted, 
under cover of some music contributed by one of the 
unimportant persons whose names I have forgotten. 

“ What is Miss Maple doing? ” I asked. 

Lady Brasted put her head on one side. Then she 
shook it gently, like a swaying flower, and a little 
touch of sharpness came into her face. 

Poor child,” she said, ‘‘ she is abroad with her 
aunt.” 

I heard that she is not a Catholic after all ; and 
that she is engaged to be married.” 

‘‘ I believe that is so,” said Lady Brasted. 

‘‘ To a Manchester merchant ? ” 

She nodded discreetly and sadly ; but she spoilt it 
all by immediately adding: 

“ Of course it is all very beautiful about the dear 
boy. I do so hope that he has found his true vo- 
cation;” by which I understood her to mean that 
she hoped he had not, and that he would be thor- 
oughly miserable. 


366 THE CONVENTIONALISTS 


“ The Prior seems to have no doubt about it,” I 
said. 

Ah, well!” 

She confided in me no more ; I was plainly a bun- 
gler in the affaire Algy, though not a positive crim- 
inal like Dick. I mentioned that priest’s name once 
to her, but never again. . . . 

We went off to the smoking-room presently, and 
there I observed the ritual which Algy had described 
to me with such accuracy. We all sat in a semi- 
circle, our host in his pontifical chair on the right of 
the empty fireplace, with the whisky and syphons 
beside him, Harold on the leather couch, and that 
man next him, and I in the place of honor on the 
left. I smoked a cigarette or two to Mr. Banister’s 
cigar ; we spoke of undenominational country affairs 
and of Westminster Cathedral and of the village 
schools. At the moment appointed in the ritual, 
whisky was dispensed; and at a minute or two be- 
fore eleven the other guest disturbed all the cere- 
monies by begging leave to go to bed. But it gave 
Mr. Banister his opportunity. 

“ Poor boy ! ” he said abruptly, when the foot- 
steps had died away; and he drew the last few rich 
breaths from his cigar. But you say he is 
happy ? ” 

‘‘ Very happy indeed,” I answered. 

‘‘ Well, well.” 


THE CONVENTIONALISTS 367 


He glanced across at Harold with infinite com- 
placency, laying his cigar end in the little tray at 
his elbow. 

Perhaps it’s all for the best,” he added. ‘‘ You 
won’t misunderstand me. Father Benson, when I 
say that he always was something like the fool of 
the family? ” 

‘‘ I understand perfectly,” I said truthfully. 

There was a pause. Then he glanced at the clock, 
sighed, rather too deliberately I thought, and pro- 
nounced the formula. 

Well — shall we be turning in? ” he said. 

I, too, glanced at the clock. It was on the stroke 
of the hour; and Algy at this moment, I knew, was 
entering the great church with his lantern. He had 
gone to bed as we went to dinner : now he was rising 
from his first sleep for his two or three hours 
prayer, as we prepared to sleep. ... 

“ With all my heart,” I said, rising. 


THE END 








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